Gardener Has To Have His Hostas ‘Engineering Feat’ On Hillside Selected Garden Of The Month

In a way, Charles Gillingham’s obsession with hostas grew out of a small carrot patch. Four summers ago, the carrot patch gave way to a few hostas. Now nearly 2,000 hostas grow on a half-acre in Gillingham’s back yard.

The Inland Empire Garden Club chose Gillingham’s Spokane Valley garden as the June winner of the group’s monthly contest. But more than the meticulously groomed hostas, daylilies and Japanese maples, the site impressed the judges.

Gillingham’s garden is a near-vertical hillside. The Ponderosa Hills lot slopes steeply from the street, and just behind the house it drops off. Gillingham’s gardening adventures began when he retired five years ago.

He likes fresh carrots and decided to grow them out of sight on the hillside. He tied one end of a rope around a pine tree and the other end around his waist and rappelled halfway down the hillside. There, he dug into the hill to make a 3-foot flat spot and planted the carrot seeds.

Gillingham liked the results so the next summer, he expanded the garden, tying himself to trees until he carved goat paths into the hillside. He dug out the cheatgrass by hand and lowered railroad ties for retaining walls down the hillside on ropes. Then, he cut down the pine trees and the garden started to take shape.

Now, five years later, dense floats of hundreds of hostas cover the yard, separated by narrow grassy paths. Where the hillside is so steep that water runs straight off, Gillingham planted grass that he mows with a weedwhacker.

“Every year I said `no more,’ then I’d go out and do some more,” Gillingham said during a recent walk-through of his garden.

The entire hillside is planted so Gillingham spends just an hour or two a day walking the paths, pausing to pull a weed or admire one of his favorites. The latter he does often.

“This one’s going to be a beauty; it’s called Striptease and it’s the only three-colored hosta,” he says while pointing to a plant dwarfed by the hostas all around it. “I’d rather come out here than go on vacation. I can spend an hour out here just thinking about what I can do to make it prettier.”

Foliage - especially variegated foliage - excites Gillingham, not flowers. “I cut off the flowers on the hostas. I want all of the energy to go to the leaves,” he says.

Dozens of Japanese maples, with leaves ranging from green and white variegated to the traditional deep red, grow out of a jungle of hostas. “The secret to this garden is water,” Gillingham says. “I water every other day in the spring, every day in the summer. And fertilizer. A 10-10-10 mix three to four times a year.”

When Gillingham filled up his yard with plants, he inquired about buying his neighbor’s back yard, an identical slope. The offer was turned down. So when the enthusiastic gardener finds a plant he can’t live without, he digs up one he likes less.

“I’ve taken out maybe 1,500 plants in the last few years. Almost all of the hostas I planted at the first are gone. I grind them up with a rotary mower and use them as compost. In this garden, if a plant doesn’t look good, I take it out. Why waste space on those I don’t care for?” Gillingham said.

Gillingham has his favorites - sagae, gold standard, Paul’s glory - which he divides and replants in new spots.

The Inland Empire Garden Club judges called Gillingham’s garden “aerobic but restful.” “An engineering feat - a stunning garden on an unbelievably difficult site.”

The deadline for the July Garden of the Month contest is July 15; the final contest ends Aug. 15. Details for entry are available at all Northwest Seed & Pet stores.