The riotous beauty of the daylilies has me feeling that I’m somewhat neglecting the glory of my hostas, so today I’m featuring the front yard.

As I’ve written in the past, I’m no fan of lawns and mowing, thus we’ve converted nearly every foot of our yard to beds, including the front yard.

The sight in the first few years was not good, but I had a vision. It started with the removal of the pitiful grass under the shade of the Red Oak Tree and the delivery of two very large rocks, one for Christmas and the other my birthday present, eight years ago. Then we started hauling in smaller prairie rocks ― lots of ’em. We used our trailer and a ramp and the wheelbarrow. We kept the neighbors amused, no doubt.

This boulder (left) almost broke me.

Then, I started with about a dozen hostas or so each year. I’ve recently learned this about hostas: the first year they sleep, the second year they creep, and the third year they leap. It certainly does take patience, but this year they are spectacular ― all 126 varieties.

Here are some of my favorites:

Paul’s Glory hosta.

August Moon hosta.

Sum and Substance hosta.

The ones shown below were just tiny sprigs when I received them in the mail, and it has truly taken patience to see them become worthy of their names.

Lost the name of the one in the foreground. The other two are Blue Mammoth.

The rock in the center is about 4 feet by 3 feet, which gives perspective to the huge hosta to the right of it, Sum and Substance.

This photo was taken in the same location as the photo of me above, where I was perched on my rock and surrounded by bare ground.

Rainforest Sunrise hosta.

Dwarf Blue Spruce.

And what the heck, I’ll wrap this up with some of the latest daylilies: