Hosta Hosta Read All About It.

So, our north side yard was looking a little sad.  Like in a knee high weeds growing in a two year old, unattended mulch area kind of way.  We dug up a strip of grass next to the house two years ago with every intention of planting something there someday.  Well, our someday turned into two years. Losing yard of the month points daily 'round here.  It was high time we did something about it.  Our side yard is super steep.  We have high hopes of carving out some DIY stone/wood/pavers/something other than grass steps ... someday. I did a bit of research on foundation planting.  I found this and this rather helpful. Because that area is almost exclusively in the shade, I decided on hostas.  I thought that would be the easy route, until I started researching hosts and discovered that hostas are a b-i-g deal.  Seriously, I had no idea that there were collector items and that they come out with a new winner every year.  Anyways, after staring at all the options at our local nursery, I decided I liked 1997's Patriot the best.  So I bought five for the area and called in my favorite digger.

Our neighbors already think we are bit odd with all of our DIY project going ons, so it probably wasn't all that surprising that we began this endeavor at 8:30 PM on Monday night.  You see those weeds there.  Totally not cute.  We first had to dig up some more grass to allow for our hosta babies.  The Patriot variety is known to get about three feet wide and two feet tall.  Here's a bitty close-up.

The variegated color in the leaves is what got me.  I also mixed in a couple varieties of Heuchera [a green and dark purple].

After a bit of dark cocoa mulch, this is what we were left with.

Ah, it is so nice not to see Ona height weeds going down the side yard.  Can you even believe how steep that is?  We can't wait for our little plants to grow and fill in the space and cover that exposed foundation cement.  We've got a whole yard worth of plantings to go, but holla for getting one little thing checked off our someday list.

Anyone with me in agreeing that cocoa mulch, heck mulch in general, covers a multitude of sins?