by Chris Factor

Created on: August 16, 2008   Last Updated: September 21, 2008

Divided Hosta Multiplies Several Lives Over

Years after my divorce; and years after my ex-mother-in-law, who I have always admired, passed on; I am gazing out the living room bay window overlooking one of the gardens bordered by variegated hostas. The hostas, which started from a clump, were from my ex-mother-in-law's garden. Recalling how that hosta was started in my garden in the old neighborhood over 30 years ago, I smile with bittersweet memories.

As any seasoned gardener will tell you, during the fall season plants are split and passed on to friends or planted elsewhere in your garden. I divided the first plant into four clumps; and planted them strategically around the yard. In two years I divided each one into fours and ended up with 16 plants and so on. In the process I gave them away to neighbors and friends and so the story goes. As this ritual is repeated, it just created a wide hosta web. Through the years you never know the lives and friendship these hostas have touched. Yet, as I am writing this story this also reminds me of the multi-level marketing tiers or the ripple in the water caused by a rock thrown in the calm pond.

I moved into this house 14 years ago, and that summer I started a hosta garden under the cottonwood tree in the back yard. One of the first clumps of hostas my girlfriend, a former neighbor from the old neighborhood, gave me. I have repeated that process of dividing, keeping, and passing it on. I smile as I remember my girlfriend saying to me that it's a clump from those hostas I gave her when I split the hosta that grandma gave me.

It is bittersweet how that hosta came full circle after all these years. A divorce that made me move changes your lifestyle and gardening was not important. A death left a gap because her plants were a connection I had when she passed on.

Now those plants have multiplied and I have given some to friends and neighbors. You wonder what stories weave through these plantings years from now. Will they be bittersweet or happy memories? For me it brings a smile of happier times and life goes on.

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