A hosta hobby that just kept growing
Town of Brighton couple maintains 11 gardens, 500 varieties
Some couples start a scrapbook when a new grandchild is born. Others might buy a baptismal candle or purchase a spiffy outfit for the little one to wear.
Eldred and Mary Suckow plant a new hosta garden.
The couple is up to 11 hosta gardens — featuring a total of 525 different varieties of the perennial — at their home in the town of Brighton. That’s one garden for each grandkid, plus one extra for their late son-in-law, Jamison Kampmeyer, who was killed in the line of duty as a firefighter in 2012.
Eldred said they planted their first hosta garden 15 years ago, and they just never stopped.
“It’s kind of addicting,” Mary says. “You get one in and then you want more.”
Walking around their three-acre yard provides a nice tour of their hosta hobby, with each garden displaying a unique array of the green-leafed plants. Near the center of each garden is a wooden sign with the name of the grandchild it is named after.
“We thought they’d each weed their own garden, but that’s not happening,” Mary said.
It takes quite a bit of mulch to keep the weeds at bay, and even then, a fair amount of mid-summer weeding is needed to keep the beds looking nice.
“It keeps me busy,” Eldred said.
Besides mulching and weeding, he said he fertilizes the soil in the spring and occasionally has to put out poison for slugs that like to eat the leaves. The gardens are also protected by nine Deer Chaser devices, motion-activated guardians that flash lights and play radio music whenever a deer (or other hungry creature) wanders too close to one of the gardens.
When the couple moved onto the property in 2000, there wasn’t much in the way of gardens and landscaping. Years of elbow grease, loads of dirt and wood chips and many plant purchases have transformed the yard into an outdoor hosta gallery, bursting forth with a rich mixture of green shades and hues.
“We went from farming crops to farming hostas,” Mary said, referring to their past as farmers. She said her brother, Gerry Meyer, got them interested.
Markers have been planted in the dirt next to each variety, which feature interesting names like “awakening angel,” “ginsu knife” and “brutus.” Mary says a variety known as “foxfire” is one of the more valuable ones they have.
The couple has worked around a couple of significant obstacles when establishing a new garden. One of them has a decent-sized boulder among the plants, a formidable chunk of rock that had to be dug out of the ground with a bulldozer.
“It’s one of those things you only move once,” Eldred said.
The couple has also added other decore to some of the gardens, including a statue of the Virgin Mary and a couple of metal ornaments bought from Jurastic Park in Marshfield.
The Suckows take their hobby seriously, and are always searching for new varieties to purchase and add to their collection.
“We’ve got the Hosta-pedia (encyclopedia of hostas),” Mary said. “It’s bigger than the Bible.”
They are also members of the American Hosta Society and they once attended a midwest convention held in Green Bay.
With their four kids having a total of 10 grandchildren among them, Eldred and Mary are convinced that they are done having to plant any new hosta gardens.
“I’ve run out of room to put them,” Eldred said, looking around.
