NICE new bed, backyard, trees AND hosta list!!! You've chosen some stunners.

The only one I have from your list is a 1yr old pretty Ann Kulpa.

I'm eager to see your newbies in their new location. One suggestion is...incorporate your potted hosta, pot n all, right in the bed if you have room? I'm only suggesting so I can see your potted JE, SB and MD ....LOL

Love your new garden and it looks like it will be a wonderful place to plant but I see you have done what I did placing my rocks. After the grass needed cutting , I had to weed eat the edges because the grass started growing up between the rocks . I solved this in my situation and dug out all the sod back around the outside 8 to 12 inches lined it with plastic and placed pea gravel in it so I could run the lawn mower wheel on it and not make extra work. What was your plan to solve this? I still have one more I need to do this on. I keep banging rocks out of place when getting too close. By the way , I love your rocks too

Nice looking bed... sure hope you get some nice plants to fill it!

Good advice on the mowing issue... I've tried various options, none of them perfect... but I do think a soil-level flat buffer can be great... and relatively easy to hit (verrrryyyy carefully) with Roundup once or twice a year to keep it clear. I would look for a small crushed rock rather than pea gravel. Pea gravel rolls... crushed rock clings to the other pieces and stays in place much better. Also, I'd want gray crushed rock to match the lovely rock lining.

Those curves and delicious black dirt have me salivating for garden planning!

I'd be thinking about "height" in that deepest part behind the tree... an additional mound of dirt would give more height and display the plants better.

Equally good would be some taller accent plants that work well with hostas. For a nice formal space like this, I'd look for something interesting... tallish red cimicifuga, maybe... maybe one of the newer baptisias... I love Kirengeshoma (Korean Waxbells). All three of those have interesting foliage to contrast with the hostas and add a height accent.

It is also a good spot for garden art... most folks would add a birdbath there - so I wouldn't. I'd find something that reflects you... an old wheelbarrow... an old bicycle (with potted plants in the baske... a pyramid of bowling balls... a civil war cannon... something that reflects you.

(Yes - we do have a 6+ foot tall 19th century Chinese Buddhist temple incense burner in the garden... and in another we have old shovels... reflect my wife's elegant taste and my inablity to throw anything away...)

of your list... my picks and pans...

Alex Summers - I like it... and I like it in combo with Rascal, which is pretty much the reverse... and the parent plant gold Regal

Paradigm - this is always in my top 10 list... rare to have such a lovely mature plant that is also relatively fast growing and has no particular flaws... there aren't many plants I give more than one spot to in the garden... this is one

Ann Kulpa I like it - but for narrow white centers, I think I prefer Risky Business and Silver Lode...

Autumn Frost - haven't added it to my collection (yet)... love everything in this famiily but, honestly, I think I might like the thinner margin of First Frost better. Actually, I like El Nino much better than First Frost, as do most visitors to my garden seeing mature specimens near each other. El Nino has such a neat crisp white from the get-go rather than the color changing of FF.

Dancing Queen - sets the standard for medium yellow plants... if not this one, then Sea Gulf Stream for me...

Lakeside Lollipop - cute... distinctive...

Pizzazz - my only "pan" - just doesn't do a thing for me... its look is supposed to be kind of rugged and rowdy... for me it just looks like it is not quite well...

Others to consider... man, I can just see a Victory in the flared out section toward the southern end. It will grow to 6 feet and people will cross the lawn to look at it.

Queen of the Seas - for me this does for blues what Dancing Queen does for yellows.

Trellises for height and accent along the fence? A favorite vine on each? Also providing supports for garden art and/or potted plants, similar to shepherds crook idea?

I've got to go to bed - just typing about it exhausts me! Nice job on those beds!

Beautiful work! I second the request to see your Journey's End...

Good looking bed! My only concern is,will the added soil around the tree hurt it,by burying the roots too deep?Phil

A great looking bed, mbug and an excellent selection of plants. Oaks are great for growing Hosta.

Is that soil around the base of the tree? It appears very black and well amended if it is. You want to be careful burying tree roots especially around the "flare" of the tree. You want the flare of the tree to be completely uncovered with either mulch or soil. Here's a quote from a good article on creating beds with mature trees.

"A common mistake is to build a raised bed around the trunk of a tree and fill it with soil and mulch, thus raising the level of soil around the trunk. This widely seen practice, where the tree on its partly buried trunk sticks out of the ground like a lollipop, will eventually, over many years, kill the tree."

I see this happening regularly in my neighborhood.

Steve

Here is a link that might be useful: Planting around a mature tree

Thanks everyone for the comments and great ideas. I always appreciate the suggestions.
I do have the tree roots covered so I will have to figure out how to fix that.
Journey's End

Like hostafreak, my first concern was all the soil added to cover the oak tree roots. Hope you don't lose the tree. I would remove the soil in the center bed area (and maybe the right curve) to just an inch, but keep the soil built up around the individual hostas you add, making sure to work a lot into the holes you dig. Then you can maybe add another inch of soil next year without shocking the tree.

Idiothe , you are totally right on the crushed rock. I went out and looked and DH informed me it is crushed rock .