Hostage Rescue to Hostas Rescue

My new blank canvas

Those who know me, know full well what I get from gardening.

Walking the hills, running the roads, rambling through the forests…all good for the mind and the body. Well, so is gardening. To pull up the weeds, sift through the soil with bare hands, dead head the plants to have more buds flourish…nature at it’s best, and just outside of the home’s back door.

I’ve been gardening since I was a young lad growing up in Dundee, Scotland. It all began at the invitation of an old man digging his allotment. He caught me watching him as I had nothing else to do on a damp and dreach morning…aye, I should have been at school. I learnt so much from that old man, not just about gardening, but about the state of mind, and about health in general.

That’s been my life for decades. Casual learning through casual aquaintances. I thought about it so much that I became a great people watcher. At railway stations, airports or just out sitiing on a wall in the street in town…people…who are they…and what have they done…and what do they know that I don’t?

As they say, no matter how old we are, every day is a school day. And I must say, I’ve learnt way more out of school than I did in it.

So…what about the hostas?

Well, we’ve just recently moved to a gorgeous 1930s house in the Mid West of the USA. From New York to Ohio. In just over ten years in New York, I left a lovely garden that I began as a blank canvas after clearing it up from nothing more than a tip. There was even an old Model T Ford broken up and buried in the garden. I even found the plate, New York 1913.

A few months ago in the beginning of this summer I could for once call my beautiful garden mature. Then we put the house on the market and moved. If I had a penny for every time I’ve done that over the decades…

Our 1875 New York cottage style home where the garden was started from scratch.

So, here we are…arguably our last home now, unless I get to the ripe old age of 116.

My idea of moving forward after clearing 5 large hickory trees from way too close to the house, and clearing away brush and rubbish accumulated from decades of neglect, clearing out the stumps, and levelling the back yard through hard graft but fun with the heaviest tools and rake I could get hold of, gave me plenty of time to think out what my garden would look like.

There’s lots of shaded areas. We live in a street not far from a university. Houses around and about are student homes owned by the university. Once upon a time the gardens would have been pristine…but with change of ownership comes some changes to the challenge of keeping the gardens in the manner of that they once were.

So, the old Scotsman who once when much younger was a hostage rescue team member, has now turned his hand to becoming a hosta rescue individual.

The one plant that I need to begin painting my blank canvas is hostas…we have lots and lots of shaded areas in the yard soon to be called a garden.

I always laugh with my American friends when they talk of yard work. Anything work seems off putting. So I tell them, like us Brits and our European friends, you should call it gardening…it’s much more appealing to do it youself as opposed to handing it out to the myriad of cheap “landscape” companies. Plus the benefits that it brings for your own health and well being. Yes, they look at me puzzled!

Most of the student housing, many beautiful 1930s houses like our own new home have hostas overgrowing in their yards. Other wild plants (weeds) growing over and through them…it’s tough to take to see such a beautiful plant species become so neglected.

Now step in the hosta rescue individual…I can give these gorgeous plants the new life that they deserve, in my garden.

We’ll see just how it develops and I’ll let you know.