Gifted Garden

I don't know where I heard it, but I have heard that plants taken from another garden or gifted from another garden out perform purchased plants. I don't know if it is true, but all gifted plants in my garden are close to my heart. To me it is the ultimate gift. I am fortunate to have many long time neighbors and friends with gardens. We have begun to share plants. This gives our garden a true community feel visually and creates community mentally. I always offer any plant that has outgrown our garden to friends and neighbors. But the unspoken rule of gardeners seems to be to offer once and if not accepted move on to the next gardener. We have a community garden that is always looking for transplanted plants for the garden or for their plant sale they conduct to raise funds. I do not have plants that go unwanted. Indeed my gifted plants all do very well. I also have plants that have been in my garden since we first started our garden over ten years ago. These plants have taken the abuse of renovation of the house and yard and well as countless transplanting and dividing. One of my favorites is a variegated hosta given to us by a co-worker of Steve's while he was at W.K. Dickson. I believe is was around 1996. He gave me three small pots with plants he divided from his own. Since that time we have divided and spread this plant throughout our yard, our rental house and the community. It grows well in all soil and has beautiful purple blooms. We also have irises and day lilies that appear to have been divided and shared for years prior to our purchase of our home. My Breault neighbors and I continue to share and expand our iris gardens with these same plants. I know I will probably miss some of those that have given me plants over the years but here is thanks to Brendan, Chad, Raigan and Greg. Here's to the gifted garden. All photos are plants that started as gifted plants.