As I was preparing for our hosta trip to Madison and deciding which hostas to take with me to sell, I saw a problem.
There they were—tucked among the lower rows on our ground-level staging—bearing the unmistakable, ragged, skeletonized chew marks of summer’s greediest freeloaders. Slugs. And don’t worry, I won’t be bringing anything that was on the ground; only those pristine specimens raised up too high on our tables for the slugs to ever dream of reaching are making the trip to Madison.
If your phone’s camera roll looks anything like mine, you probably have a couple of photos of your family, a few of the dog, and roughly four thousand pictures of hostas, fresh-bloomed peonies, and afternoon light filtering through the shade canopy.
And honestly, we try to multitask, don’t we? I know I’ve spent time—too much time, probably—scooting my kids into a hosta patch, posing them right next to my prized ‘Empress Wu’, trying to get that perfect “family enjoying nature” shot.
If you had told me a few years ago that I would be standing in front of a room full of fellow plant lovers talking about running a home-based specialty plant nursery, I probably would have smiled, nodded, and quietly wondered if they had the right person. After a lifetime spent in education—working as a reading specialist, literacy leader, and instructional coach—stepping into the world of horticulture felt a lot like walking into a room without my lesson plan.