Saturday: Kathy & Mike Shadrack's Garden

Mike Shadrack is a British horticulture speaker, book author & photographer. Kathy Guest Shadrack, is a board member of the Western New York Hosta Society, as well as the former president and current newsletter editor of the Buffalo Area Daylilly Society (BADS News). On Saturday, July 10, we'll be visiting their rural garden in Hamburg, New York.

Kathy & Mike are members of the American Hosta Society -- he is currently Vice-President Publications, Kathy is the Recording Secretary.  Mike has also been a member of the British Hosta & Hemerocallis Society for twenty-two years, is former Chairman and currently their executive Bulletin Editor. 
Their house is built over a creek (like Falling Water -- not quite that spectacular, but still... it really IS built over a creek), set way back from the road in a clearing the the woods. There are mixed terraced gardens on one side of the house with dry stacked stone walls.  Mike has two large hosta gardens, one on the far side of the creek, with medium-to-large hostas in a woodland garden, and a "small hosta garden" in a sunken area with several raised beds and a rockery with small and miniature hostas.  There are also extensive containers.

He has been growing hostas since 1986 and has been trying to hybridize almost as long. He and Kathy now garden in Western New York where they maintain a large collection of modern cultivars and a garden devoted to small hostas.

Mike is also a qualified London Tourist Board Guide and organizes garden tours both in England and specialized hosta tours in the US.

Another hobby, photography, has led to a library of about 4,800 slides of hosta varieties and hosta gardens, many of which have been published in UK and USA catalogues and magazines. In addition, Mike supplied the illustrations for the Royal Horticultural Society, Wisley handbook Hostas.

He is co-author, with Diana Grenfell, and photographer of the book, The Color Encyclopedia of Hostas. The book was named the "2005 Reference Book of the Year" by the British Garden Writers Guild.  The sequel to that book – Pocket Guide to Hostas was released in 2007. In addition, a French hosta book, Les Hostas was published in early 2007 with Mike as photographer and co-author.

Mike and Diana’s latest book, The NEW Encyclopedia of Hostas was published in February, 2010 by Timber Press.