I worked on the portion of the border garden closest to the street and finished about thirty feet. A hundred baby maples had to be pulled and tons of leaves were still lodged in between the shrubs. I have to replace many of the hostas cause they are so stunted.
Steve went to a trailer fire in Hanover and on the way back he noticed that Ran Lydell's Eagle Bay hosta garden was open. As soon he told me, we took off to visit. Ran was the one who got me and my sisters started on gardening with hostas and lilies back in 1996.
At 74, Ran is still working full time at a landscaping job in Buffalo. His wife is a full time nurse, so they have a hard time keeping up with the huge property and acres of hostas, lilies, succulents, cacti and rare plants of all types. They closed the shop on Route 60 and consolidated all the plants on to one property. He is a master hybridizer and one of the foremost experts on hostas in the entire world. They have traveled the nation in search of unusual plants.
When I started buying hostas from him years ago, I created a base of some of the most dazzling, but reasonably priced hostas. Over the years, I tried to add six or seven unusual plants each year. More recently, his gardens have not been open much and I had to resort to common Home Depot hostas. Today I bought six dazzling and unusual hostas. Now to decide where to place them for best effect. I've lost track of what each of them is called and most of the labels washed away. I think the total number of different types that we have is around 100.
A major storm is moving through the area tonight and the winds are howling! I hope my new plants will not be harmed by the pounding rain.
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