Out My Kitchen Window

As perennial flowers bloom out during their season and others wait their turn, there are blooming annuals for a quick glimpse of color. Even then, there are times when looking out my kitchen window that the greens in the garden take front stage.

I’ve just trimmed the spent iris and peony pods. Looking out my window the hostas are well leafed out.

I’m a hosta fan and I’m fortunate I have shade for them. There is a variety of them in the flower garden and they put on quite a show. I don’t know their names but I do know where most of them came from. Most are from divisions from family and friends.

It’s hard to pick a favorite but I really favor two in particular. One is Sum and Substance. The leaves are a lighter green but they grow quite large. The plant can tolerate more light than many other hostas so it is adaptable to many places in the landscape.

The other favorite is a green leaf hosta with a thin cream edge on the leaves.

Looking at it, I think that maybe someone outlined the edges of the leaves with a fine paint brush. It is just a real pretty hosta used on its own or incorporated among other varieties.

I think it’s my go-to hosta.

Of course, with so many hosta varieties in the world how can a gardener truthfully select just one favorite.

hostas offer so much to the garden. They are elegant, interesting and fun. Yes fun.

The leaves are great for filling a vase when arranging flowers or make a lovely statement when you clip and arrange an assortment of them in a vase.

I can also just imagine the garden fairies napping under the big leaves during the hot part of a summer day. When little people come to visit the garden, you can keep them quite busy looking under leaves for the fairies.

hostas aren’t prone to very many negative enemies. Slugs are perhaps the main culprits of the green leaves. Deer and rabbits also like to nibble on them. There again, the fun side of hostas can be drinking part of a beer and putting the rest in a shallow dish under the hostas. Bottoms up, slugs. Slugs are drawn to the beer and they die.

Oh, the many leaves of hostas. It seems once you start growing them you just can’t stop. There is always a shady spot to plant just one more hosta plant. Or one more spot that needs the calming effect of a few hosta plants.

You can incorporate other perennials with hostas to create even more dramatic scenery. There are ferns and coral bells and oh so many more plant varieties.

Another annual that is favored more for its leaves than its flowers are coleus. There are endless combinations of the colored leaves for your garden. You can light up a shaded area with a cream and green colored coleus or even some of the russet colored leaves. The choices are endless.

There are even sun coleus. They make it fun to add another color to your sunny garden spots.

I will categorize coleus with the greens In my garden as I don’t grow them for their blooms. In fact clipping the flowers encourages a bushier plant.

The greens of the garden can be just as interesting as the bright colors of blooming flowers. And you just never know as you look out your kitchen window you might catch a glimpse of a garden fairy hiding from the little hands of children reaching under leaves.