<p>I dream about living in another state or country every time I wander away from Indiana. Many times it’s just for a fleeting moment — mostly it’s a curiosity in how others live, what they’ve learned and how they express themselves.</p><p>Last weekend I jumped onto an Indianapolis Hosta Society coach tour with fifty other plant enthusiasts where we attended the multi-state 2019 Hosta Tailgate. Visualize a football tailgate with food, games, laughing and celebrating over the upcoming game and just substitute Cleveland, Ohio, hosta garden tours for the football game.</p><p>I admit I’m a border-line garden geek, probably having hurled myself across that line a long time ago. But beholding and appreciating the artistic landscape design of a garden, then meeting and talking to the gardener is analogous to my daughter Alex, shaking hands and talking football with Von Miller, Chad OchoCinco Johnson, Zach Kerr or Brett Farve.</p><p>The tailgate, hosted by the North Coast Hosta Society, was 1,000 feet from the shores of Lake Erie in the Bay Community House, a 137-year-old barn that was converted in the 1930s to a municipal hall. Besides the tailgate of food, there were a myriad of garden vendors, culminating with a live and silent auction.</p><p>If I hadn’t gone, I wouldn’t have met Ken and Marcia Muster, who planted their first hosta 19 years ago and have now expanded to 500 labeled hostas on five acres of lush gardens in the woods. Living on the edge of a glacial moraine, every time they stick a shovel into the ground, they find tons of stones for walls and paths. They have unusual stand-out trees like the fern-leaf beech, which was purchased years ago from an auction that was selling Ohio State University Horticultural new propagated plants. They were just downright nice people.</p><p>Carl and Marilyn Schmid were equally heartwarming — the lemonade and freshly baked cookies were quite a hit also. Two acres of 350 hostas, 270 daylillies, with two fish ponds containing koi and shabunkins. But Carl’s eyes really lit up when he shared his “Schmid’sonian” barn with us, full of his arrowhead and lightning rod collections.</p><p>And of course there was the grand 1936 Tudor Revival home of Margaret Ransohoff. Oh, the stone work, the arched doorways, the copper gutters — the luscious gardens! A true gardener, she met us walking through the double-stone archway, with her arm in a sling courtesy of a gardening accident due to all the rain and slippery grass. Pure delight.</p><p>When I returned home, I remembered instantly why I love it here. I found my dad in his backyard.</p><p>“Hey, Janny, I’ve invented a new kind of gardening called shade, bucket gardening,” he said.</p><p>Yes, he was taking a break from weeding his garden in the heat of the afternoon and had grabbed an overturned bucket to sit for a spell in the shade of his maple tree.</p><p>It’s nice to be home.</p>
