Foxfire hostas

[ViolaAnn]

This was just posted on Dave's Garden -

My dear Friends and fellow Hostaphiles,

After careful consideration Linda and I have decided to discontinue hosta sales at the gardens. Our entire existing inventory will be liquidated in a one-day megasale here on Saturday, August 29th starting at 8:am. Anyone wishing to buy 10 or more of the existing potted hostas, regardless of size or variety, will pay only $5 per plant. (Sorry, no charges-Cash or check only) There will be thousands of them, ranging from our old favorites to many of the newer varieties. This may be one of the best opportunities ever to add to your collections at very reasonable prices.

Mature display plants will also be sold as well as streaked breeders. I have allowed all the plants to flower this year so the seedpods on the streakers should hold a great diversity of the garden genetics for you hybridizers in the group. You may want to bring a shovel and a friend with a strong back! My ‘giant heavy fork’ will be available for anyone who needs it to pop one out. As you know, at this time of year, one can cut the leaves off if desired and just transport the root ball alone. However you might do it this is an excellent opportunity to acquire an ‘instant’ mature garden at bargain prices. Rows of growers and large clumps will also be sold if you like multiples.

Linda and I would like to thank all of you who have been so supportive of the Gardens and our passion for hostas. You have been good friends and friends to the gardens and we hope you will consider this sale as our way of saying ‘Thank you’ to a truly wonderful group of fellow enthusiasts.

Sincerely,
Stephen and Linda

[redcrx]

Hmmm, I just bought some things from them for the first time a week ago. Their web site show some nice items.

[Linda P]

Oh, darn the luck! I am going to be in Wisconsin that day, but on the other side of the state, and I have a wedding to attend.
I tried so hard to get up there this year, as I've never had the pleasure of visiting their gardens. It just didn't work out.
Linda P

[R. Rock]

Hmm? What is the reason?

[woodthrush]

The reasons seem to be zoning issues and complaints from the neighbors about the amount of traffic.
Pam

[Chris_W]

Regardless of the reasons (I don't buy the zoning/neighbors issue unless it resulted in some kind of litigation - ie lots of money to resolve things) I do wish them the best of luck. I can only imagine the kind of hellish nightmare that is going on there right now, allowing people to dig their own. And scary to think of the potential diseases being spread around by allowing people to bring their own tools to do it! But you have to do, what you have to do. I'm certain that at some point in time Brian and I will have to make that sort of decision ourselves, though hopefully by the time we are ready to retire there might be someone willing to take things over from us here.

Best wishes to Steve and Linda!

Chris

[eastwood2007]

The fight over the 'one in a million' could really escalate quickly if people have shovels and forks in their hands!!!!!

I bet it is a madhouse there today!!!

I wish them luck, too!

[hostameister]

I left Chicago for the great beyond at 1:30 AM., with the intention of arriving about an hour before the 8 AM opening time. I picked up another friend on the way, and we arrived there at 7:04 AM. Three others had already preceded us. Shortly afterward, a convoy of vehicles began arriving. While waiting in line, we were given handbills that stated the Rules and Regulations of the sale. Some like us came armed with shovels, gardening forks and rubber boots. Steve Schulte arrived around 7:50 AM, and stressed the clumps of display plants that had "Sold" tags on them had already been prepurchased, and were to be picked up by their owners sometime during the week. Also, restricted areas were going to be roped off from the public. And with that, he let us in early. The crowd was very orderly, and each of us went about our business. I had the foresight to bring my own garden cart, having heard from others that there could very well be a shortage of carts. Unfortunately, this did turn out to be the case, with several individuals asking me as to where the carts are, or when I was dropping a load off at my van, making inquiries as to how quickly I was intending to "unload" the cart.

Of course, things didn't exactly go quite so smoothly. A Foxfire Palm Sunday had been dug up, and Linda angrily demanded its return. It was announced about 15 minutes later that it actually was. As things turned out, it had been dug up by mistake. I met the individual who had confided the misdeed to me - a very nice elderly woman. She stressed that it hadn't been posted with a "Sold" or "Display - Do Not Remove" tag, and didn't even know what it was. She just liked the look of the plant (and who wouldn't?), and simply had dug it up. She struck me as an honest, down-to-earth individual who just liked gardening. I told her that mistakes can be made. On another front, I was busy digging up a clump, and briefly left my gardening fork alone while I placed my prize in a plastic contractor bag and load it in my garden cart. When I turned to retrieve it, it was gone. It took me close to 50 minutes to find it - with thoughts racing through my mind that someone had already left with it. While scanning the garden for my fork, I was finding more unusual clumps to dig up or take pieces off from. Steve was very busy making himself available to everyone. I especially appreciated him allowing us access to pots and rich black topsoil to pack our mini-clumps into. It didn't matter what the size of the pots were - from one gallon to 3 gallon ... they were all being charged at the $5.00 price! Dug-up clumps - regardless of size, were being priced at $25.00 each! I personally witnessed one couple who had dug up a six foot diameter clump of 'Blue Mammoth' and with each having grabbed a couple of petioles as a handle, were walking down the path toward the checkout as though they were carrying a wicker basket.

I snapped up some 'Foxfire' brand gems such as 'Irish Moon', 'Nightlife', 'Zulu', 'Divine Winds', and 'Shadow Dancer'. Some others picked up were 'Super Nova', 'Regalia', 'Geneva Stark', 'Aaarvark', 'Admiral Halsey', 'Majesty and montana 'Kinkaku'. We left around 12:15 PM to go down the road to visit the amazing garden metalworks for sale created by the hands and mastermind of a retired attorney, then off to have some late breakfast. As we left for home around 3 PM, it started to rain - and rain hard. There still were a substantial quantity of plants available when I left. I wondered what would become of those that remained unsold at the end of the day ... Would Steve and Linda extend the sale until all of the plants found new owners? Does anyone have an update on this?

[Chris_W]

Sounds like quite the road trip you took there, Hostameister! Thanks for taking us along

On GardenWeb someone posted a video of their trip there, and I was amazed by how many plants they had growing there at Foxfire Gardens and how many plants were potted up for sale. I thought we had a lot, but WOW they sure had a lot of stock there.

The idea of letting people dig up clumps, to me, sounded like a nightmare, and a potential disaster. Letting people cut pieces off clumps even more so - HVX can survive for weeks on tools, and I have no doubt that more people have HVX in the garden than they realize. I also don't think I could stand around and bear witness to that happening if it was my nursery

Hopefully Steve and Linda made enough money on the closeout sale to make it worth their while.

[hostameister]

Chris, the thought of someone passing the HVX virus through their tools did pass my mind, but there's nothing anyone really can do about it. As for my end, I did bring a bottle of bleach and wipe clean the blade with paper towels after each division cutting. If a plant does get infected, how long does it take before symptoms begin to appear?

- Dan

[R. Rock]

Dan-Hostameister,
Sure would be nice to see picture of the Foxfire "gems" you collected.

[hostameister]

Well ... that's easier said than done!
When I loaded up my van, most of the clumps and pots were stacked on top of each other and against the back wall. So when I returned back home, they were all broken up. I was more concerned with keeping the individual root balls intact, so I cut off all of the leaves. "Nutcase" - if you need to see those gems, just write down the plant names I previously had listed and look them up on the http://www.hostalibrary.org website. Photos of all of them ( in their pristine condition ) are posted there.

Sorry I cannot be of greater help.

- Dan

[R. Rock]

Thats what I thought.

[hostameister]

"Nut House" Sorry ... I didn't mean to misspell your name. My fault ... Bad memory vibes!

- Dan

[Hapygdnr]

I live within an hour or so of Marshfield and a gardening friend sent me this link today about the Foxfire situation. Quite interesting... You just never know...

http://www.marshfieldnewsherald.com/art ... ocated=rss

Jeanne

[woodthrush]

I wonder what their side of the story is.
Pam

[Hapygdnr]

Yes, I know there always at least two sides to every story. I too would like to hear what they have to say. The comments after the story at the Marshfield link just make you wonder...

Jeanne

[jgh]

I know nothing about the situation...

but I do know some really nice folks who have been self-employed and who have gotten incredibly deep into trouble with the internal revenue system. Often just treating some of one's activities as deductible for a number of years, then getting audited and having lots of back charges (and no cash to pay the back taxes and penalties) can get you into some pretty big numbers pretty fast.

One family I know was stuck in a really bad, high interest mortgage... and qualified for a much improved mortgage which would have allowed them to pay off the IRS faster with no increase in total debt - and the IRS wouldn't let them refinance until the back taxes and penalties were paid up. The IRS kept them on the verge of bankruptcy for several more years rather than letting them do something good for them AND for the IRS.

So... the comment about the big lien on the property by the government suggests to me a tax issue, especially as they were combining a botanical garden with a business... which could easily lead to seeking some outside funds... which could easily lead to what would be fraud to someone...

[Bill Meyer]

Hi Everybody,

The subject of Foxfire recently came up in another discussion. I was curious and looked into it a little further. The following two links are public information as you see and are offered without comment.

I don't know the people there or anything more about it, so you can draw your own conclusions.

http://www.marshfieldnewsherald.com/art ... 40376/1980

http://www.wisbar.org/res/capp/2009/2007ap001328.htm

......Bill Meyer