Hosta Heaven, if you're into that sort of thing

Join Garden Walk Buffalo for our first-ever Beautification Night.
Monday, April 4, 7:00 p.m., Richmond Summer Senior Center

Some of their mouse-themed hostas.

We’ll announce the Garden Walk Buffalo Beautification Award recipients for 2011! To see a list of past recipients, visit here. Garden Walk Buffalo gives back to the neighborhoods of the Walk by providing grants to block clubs, neighborhood groups and other non-profits for beautification projects. Past funds have gone toward toward hanging baskets, community gardens, storm damage repair, restoration projects, light pole banners, entrance gardens, planters and more.Kathy Guest Shadrack and Michael Shadrack, members of the American Hosta Society and British Hosta & Hemerocallis Society, and authors of the recently released The Book of Little Hostas and the classic The New Encyclopedia of Hostas, will give a quick talk about hostas, answer questions, and have a book signing. Books will be available for sale (cash or check only!). Free and open to the public. No RSVP necessary. 

It should be afun evening. Kathy's new book on little hostas is charming and elegent, as is she. Mike is a former London Bobby, garden tourism professional, hosta connoisseur, and I've found him to be more of a stand-up comic doing a hosta routine. That doesn't sound funny in print now that I read it. It shouldn't work, but it does.


Kathy is a collector of daylilies and mini-hostas. Mike collects hosta. My wife tells me the only thing I collect, is dust.


And since we'll be in a senior center, with drop ceilings, tile floors, and concrete-block walls for the evening, here's a few photos of the Shadrack garden in Hamburg, NY to make you drool.

A man outstanding in his gravel path.

Into every garden some whimsy must fall.

Here a down tree becomes a hosta planter.

They call this their hosta Octopus's' Garden in the Shade. Hostas grown Alpine-style.
For shaded gardens that can't have sun-needy Alpines, this is a good alternative.

The hosta in the foreground is actually named after Mike & classified as:
Liliaceae Hosta 'Mike Shadrack'.   It is the hybrid of two parent hostas, by the names of,
'Rock & Roll' and 'Great Expectations'. Somehow seems fitting.

Their house is built over a stream. Mike calls it the poor man's Fallingwater.
This is the view out their office window.

No, it's not a full-service restaurant. When we brought two busloads—
72 garden bloggers—to their garden, they held a high tea party for us in the forest,
complete with clotted cream and scones. They know how to party.
All we were missing was some Spotted Dick

Hostas in pots. Something I should do more of.

A tea party in the forest for 72 of the country's most influential garden bloggers.

Kathy's daylily gardens—one of the prettiest gardens in all of Western New York.

Let me see if I can do this - Michelle (WildOnesNiagara), Dee (Red Dirt Ramblings),
Sarah (Toronto Gardens), Carol (May Dreams Gardens), Gail (Clay & Limestone),
Layanee (Ledge & Gardens), and I think the hatted person up on top of
the hill may be Aldona (Toronto Botanical Gardens). Hope I got you all right.

One of my favorite photos from that extremely hot afternoon.