Workday at Hidden Lake Gardens, Tipton, MI - Info???

[Chris_W]

Hi there,

Anyone have information on the workday at the hosta hillside at Hidden Lake Gardens this Sunday? Is it at 9:30, like other meetings? I'm hoping to stop by this time around but was curious about the time and itinerary, so if anyone has the info can you pass it along?

Thanks in advance!

Chris

[twoblackdogs]

Hi Chris -

Here's the schedule:

8 am - $8 plant sale. No idea on types, but is usually good.
9:30 - workday - weeding, etc - bring gloves, pruners, trowels etc.
noon - lunch - hot dogs, salad, baked beans, chips, drinks - $3 donation
1 pm - MHS meeting - Treasurers report, membership report, officer elections, Clarence Owens Hosta Hillside Award presentation, new business (HVX brochures)
1:30 ish - plant auction

Hope that helps!

Good to see you earlier today - my sedum are all placed out and ready for planting when it's cooler. Matt wants to know if your egg ended up hatching today and what it looks like - he talked about the chickens & a pond the whole way home. The pond is more likely than chickens.

Lela

[jgh]

We had a nice visit there last year on the convention tours... my only quibble would be the best work-party gig would be to get three good identifiers to walk around and remove and/or replace incorrect labels. I know I spotted at least five obviously milabeled... and people's response tended to be a variation of "yeah... this is maintened by volunteers so there are always a bunch of incorrect labels..."

[Chris_W]

Thanks for the info Lela. It starts earlier than I thought and ends later, so I don't think I'll be able to stay long. But I'll be happy to stop by early and lend a hand.

Oh, and yes, that egg hatched today about 5:30/6:00 this evening. It is still wet, but so far looks like it is bright white. Huge feet, long legs, and a really long neck. It is going to be a tall one, so I would guess rooster from the way this one is built. Came out of the egg pretty quickly since it just pecked that air hole this morning. Be sure to tell Matt that the pond goldfish are a lot easier to take care of than the chickens

And Jim, I haven't been to hidden lake gardens in years, but that has always been a problem where plants are mislabeled. I think once a year they go around and try to fix them.

Hopefully I can get lots of good pictures on Sunday to share

Chris

[renaldo75]

I hope the day went well at Hidden Lake. Linda P and I enjoyed it when we were at Hallson's last month.
I pulled a couple of weeds that were in the way of hosta pics I wanted.

And I saw the plants that Van Wade was taking up presumably for the auction. He had a nice cartload
he told the Altmans and I that he was leaving with right after the Midlands auction was over.

[Chris_W]

Hi,

The workday went well, but unfortunately I got caught up in my least favorite topic: Hosta Virus X. There was a section of the hillside showing obvious HVX symptoms, but there was some debate about it. They did have HVX test kits to double check, though I was 99.9% certain that what we were seeing was HVX, 100% sure we were seeing virus. Nobody else thought it was HVX, but most thought that what they were seeing could be a virus. They said they simply looked suspicious. I didn't have any doubt about it

4 hostas showed symptoms, 8 hostas tested positive. The plants that didn't show symptoms but were positive were Coquette and Scooter. I suggested testing Scooter because I knew it is one of the plants that can carry HVX without showing any symptoms. Apparently Coquette can too.

I think that the virus has been spread by these cleanup days. People brought tools from their own homes including pruners to take off scapes. They were going through the whole hillside cutting down flower scapes without any cleaning being done to the tools. Scapes were cut down in many different stages of flowering, only leaving those that hadn't started yet.

Goes to show you that the HVX epidemic is very bad. The plan to remove infection from the hillside is to remove that entire section, digging out soil until they can no longer find hosta roots, then replacing it with all new dirt before replanting. Personally I think that every single plant from now on should be virus tested before being planted there, and the virus testing effort should continue throughout the hillside in case others are lurking about and not showing anything.

So it was not the fun day I was hoping for, but was glad I could be there to give a second opinion on what they were seeing

Chris

[sanannie]

I, for one, certainly appreciate your efforts in the HVX arena, Chris. It's great to have this forum to count on for a go-to in this effort. Good goin'.

Sandy