Bridgewood Guide To Hostas – How To Grow & Helping You Choose

Planning Your Hosta Garden

…is, in my opinion, a total waste of time. Maybe garden plans are great if you’re planting a perennial garden. And I’d certainly hate to try to plant one of those fancy herb gardens without drawing it all out on paper. The kind with all the little trimmed hedges that criss-cross each other back and forth… Nobody really does that anyway.

Hosta gardens are different. A real hosta garden can’t be planned. A real hosta gardener always finds new plants every spring. And they’re not in the plan. There’s always something new you can’t do without, or something you’ve been wanting for years that you finally found at a reasonable price. Oops, five new plants and no room in the plan. The plants just keep getting bigger and bigger and you have to move them to make room, and then someone comes along and talks you into dividing one cause they’re too cheap to buy their own, and now you have a small plant in a big space. Planning supposes that at some time, everything will reach a cosmic equilibrium. Hosta gardens just don’t do that. If you try to plan something like this, you will go insane. I’ve seen it happen!

The best way to design a hosta garden is to buy every hosta that you like, find some empty space in your garden, and start digging. The only comments I had for this garden was that there was still a lot of room for miniatures in the front, and of course I wondered what all that grass was for.

When you think you’ve run out of room, take a look at some of those old plants you picked up when you first started. Maybe it’s time to dig up some of those old timers and give them away so you can replace them with some expensive new introductions. And of course, if you have any other perennials or shrubs in your garden, you can always get rid of that stuff.

And after you plant them, stand back and look at them for a while looking out from your summer house or maybe from your flashier wooden log cabin and, if they don’t look just right, move them. That’s what real hosta gardeners do.

Plant Size

Generally, there are two questions about plant size – how big are the plants we ship and how big will they get.

First, the plants we ship. We may offer an individual variety in more than one size

It probably seems like it should be easy to tell you how far apart to plant your hostas. You want to know exactly how tall the plant will get and how wide it will be, so you’ll know whether to put it in front of your pink azalea or behind the coral bells. And how will you know how far apart to plant them unless you know whether they’ll be 28″ wide or 32″?

They do it on those little tags they give you with the marigolds, don’t they? Well, this is gardening, not engineering. It’s not as simple as planting marigolds. On the other hand, look at the pictures on any hosta web site and compare that to a row of little yellow marigolds spaced 8″ apart. You might have to think a bit instead of follow directions on a tag, but it will be worth it, trust me.

Probably the two most respected works on hostas currently available are ‘The Genus Hosta’ by George Schmid and ‘The Hosta Handbook’ by Mark Zillis. Both are written by knowledgeable authorities and both list a large variety of hostas and indicate their clump size. Here are some common hostas and their sizes listed by the two books and by their official registration information, respectively:

Golden Sculpture, 22″ wide x 24″ high or 72″ wide x 33″ high or 40″ wide x 30″ high.
Krossa Regal, 30″ wide x 28″ high or 71″ wide x 33″ high or 36″ wide x 36″ high.
Blue Dimples, 20″ wide x 14″ high or 45″ wide x 18″ high or 18″ wide x 13″ high.

In each case, I would presume that someone went outside with a tape measure and measured a plant, and yet all three of the measurements for the same variety are completely different.

Why is there such a difference when we’re looking at common, every day hostas that anybody writing a book should be totally familiar with? Because they all measured different plants. The plant’s size depends on when you measure it. Hostas just keep growing throughout their life cycle, 10, maybe 20 years. So when do we measure? Add to that problem the fact that clump size is very much influenced by the amount of moisture available and other cultural factors, and probably even by the area of the country where they are grown, and things start getting a bit complicated.

The measurements for height and width that I have included in the descriptions are just there to give you an idea of how large the plant will be at some point in time a few years down the road.

Dividing Hosta Plants

First of all, you probably do not need to divide your hostas. Unlike many perennials that benefit from regular division, hostas can go many years without it and, in most cases, the older they get the better they look. If your plant is 10-20 years old and the center of the crown does not produce new shoots, then it may be time to divide. Other than that, the only reason I can think of for regular division is to make more plants, and there is a price to pay for that.

Hostas go through a juvenile period which, from the seedling stage, can last four to five years and even longer. As they mature, there is a fairly dramatic change in appearance – leaves get bigger, variegated margins get wider, puckering and other leaf textures get more pronounced – just about everything we like about hostas gets better with age. Unfortunately, when you divide the plants, they revert to the juvenile stage and the process starts over. That’s the price you are going to pay for dividing your plants. You may not have to wait four or five years, especially if you do not divide too severely, but if you were to divide your plants every two or three years, you would probably never see the fully mature character of the plant.

So, let’s say that you have this gorgeous hosta in your yard and your neighbour/friend/mother-in-law, after gushing about how beautiful it is, says, “Can I have a piece of it?” Obviously the best answer is “Not on your life! Go buy your own.” But if you are too nice to say what you really think, or if this weasel is not going to take “No” for an answer, and if you’ve never divided a hosta before and you’re scared to death you’re going to kill your plant, here’s how you do it. Sit down in your summer house or shed and give it some serious thought beforehand. Do you really want to do it?

There is some question as to the best time to divide. Traditionally, I think most people considered spring the best time, but lately Bob Solberg, one of our better known hosta gurus has been advocating dividing in the summer. Bob knows a lot about hostas, so he is probably right, but I’ve always preferred the spring and I’m kind of set in my ways. Actually, because of the number of plants we grow here, we divide from March through August and the plants always seem to do just fine, but my preference is to divide as soon as the spears are visible.

Unlike most perennials, hostas do not grow roots throughout the season. There is a cycle of growth that starts with a flush of leaves in the early spring, followed by root growth, followed by flowering and seed production. Some types go through this cycle twice a year, maybe even three times in the South, others only once. I prefer to divide early in the spring because the plants will put on a spurt of root growth shortly after I cut them. My guess is, that if you do not divide down to small pieces, it probably doesn’t matter. Who knows.

If you just want to take a small piece from a large plant, or cut it into large chunks, you can take a sharp spade and just push it straight down through the plant. Just try to aim so that you are sure to get some roots along with the foliage.

Fertilising Hostas Advice

Fertilising is much more complicated than watering because there are no two growers who agree on the best way to fertilise. Liquid feed, organics, time release, green sand, alfalfa meal, and who knows what else. I’ve seen hostas described as heavy feeders and I’ve seen test results that indicate that using a balanced fertiliser at half the recommended rate produced the best results.

Bridgewood Garden’s opinion, based on over 25 years of growing hostas, it doesn’t matter. Fertiliser is fertiliser. I do recommend fertilising, but I don’t think it makes much difference how you do it. When people want to know what to use, the first question I ask is “What kind of fertiliser do you already have?” Chances are, that’s as good as anything.

The most important thing to remember is that we fertilise plants to provide the nutrients that are lacking in the soil. The best way to do that is obviously to start with a soil test to find out what’s already there. Over the years I have suggested a soil test to hundreds of people, and I suspect that at least three or four have actually had one done.

Since you’re never going to get a soil test done, your best bet is probably a balanced fertiliser, maybe a liquid feed of Miracle Grow, Peters, or something similar in the early spring, followed by a slow-release, organic, or just a cheap dry garden fertiliser when the soil warms up. If you want to do more than that or get fancy, go ahead. It probably won’t do any harm.

Story By Bridgewood Gardens

Here’s a story that’s really true, not just something I made up to illustrate a point. Several years ago I decided I needed to get more serious about our growing methods here, so I talked to several growers about how they fertilised. At one of the nurseries that had always grown great hostas, I thought their plants looked especially nice that year. I talked to the head grower and she told me that they had switched from slow release fertiliser to liquid feed that year and were very pleased with the improved growth of their plants.

She liked the control that the liquid gave her. She could adjust the feeding to the weather and to the plants’ needs. The rest of the story is probably predictable so I won’t drag it out. Another grower went just the opposite direction.

He told me he had changed from liquid to slow release fertiliser and he couldn’t believe how much better his plants were growing. The plants were fertilised constantly during the warm months when they needed it, with little or no feeding when it was cool. He didn’t have to worry about a feeding schedule because his plants always had the nutrients when they needed it.

All general purpose fertilisers do essentially the same thing. The most important consideration in choosing the right one is your gardening practices. There is no single answer

Again, we should probably call on some common sense gardening here. If you use liquid feed and you water like I told you to, the fertiliser is going to be washed through the soil and so you have to fertilise regularly. If you are not inclined to think about fertilising regularly, then longer lasting dry fertilisers are probably a better choice. Read the directions on the fertiliser you’re using. And remember that the directions were written by people who’s job it is to sell fertiliser, so you can probably cut the recommended amounts in half.

Here’s the rest of that last story, which, again, is really true. I got some plants from the second grower, the one who had just switched to slow release fertiliser. They had used a broom handle to make a hole nearly two inches deep in the pots and they filled the hole with fertiliser. The plants were beautiful, but we noticed that all the growth was on one side of the pot.

When we took them out of the containers, we saw that all the roots had rotted on the side where the fertiliser was buried, and nothing was growing on that side. Using too much fertiliser will do more harm than using none. It’s like pouring salt on your plants.

Start fertilising in the spring, when the plants are first coming up and stop early to mid summer. It’s best not to fertilise late in the year because you don’t want to encourage tender, young growth going into winter. In our area, we stop fertilising in August. Once again, that underused gardening tool, common sense is the best guide.

If you have great soil and the plants are growing well, you don’t need to fertilise a lot. If your soil is poor and your plants are not putting on the growth you think they should, you may want to increase feeding.

A word of caution. Some gardeners seem to think that fertiliser is a cure for whatever ails their plants. If your plant starts looking a bit under the weather, dumping fertiliser on it may be the worst thing you can do. Again, the common sense thing to do is find out what’s wrong before you try to fix it.

Watering Hostas Plants

I can’t say this too often. Watering is the key to growing beautiful hostas. Most garden soils have all the nutrients necessary to grow nice plants, but I suspect that very few receive enough natural rainfall to provide the water they need to stay looking good from spring to fall.

Hostas are native to Korea, Japan, and coastal China, areas of abundant rainfall. The average yearly rainfall in Tokyo is 60 inches, in Seoul it’s 54. So for most of us, natural rainfall provides only half to two-thirds the water hostas receive in much of their native habitat. The average high temperature in June in Tokyo is 80 degrees and in Seoul it’s 77. The average high in June in the UK is 70 – so quite a difference.

On top of that, compared to many perennials, they are not very efficient at using water, especially when it’s hot. Hostas, even the small ones generally have a great deal of leaf surface, and while these large leaves are evaporating water on hot summer days with wild abandon, their roots can’t keep up. Since hostas evolved in a climate that is wetter and cooler than ours, their roots and leaves are not really designed to cope with the hot, dry summers that we get in much of this country.

The answer is simple enough. Water them. I can’t tell you how many people have asked me how often they should water their hostas. Some people just have to make things complicated. Again we must rely on that essential garden tool – which should be a staple found in your garden shed or potting shed – common sense. If it’s dry, water. If it’s wet, don’t. That’s all there is to it. Don’t let your plants dry out, especially when it’s hot. If they dry out, they get those ugly burn marks along the leaf edges, and in extreme cases the whole plant may fry to a crisp like these.

It’s all pretty simple, and it’s probably the most important thing you can do for your hostas. There’s just one complication. Hostas love water when they are actively growing, but not when they are dormant. In fact, staying wet in the winter and early spring is the main cause of crown rot and root rot. So the answer to keeping your hostas watered is not to plant them in heavy, wet soil.

Your hostas need to be planted in well drained soil full of organic material, so they stay moist during the growing season, but are not too wet when they are dormant. Soils with lots of organic matter hold water well, but also have plenty of open spaces for good drainage and air circulation. By doing this you can sit out in your summer house and enjoy the fruits of your labour with glorious hosta plants. Can you beat that? I don’t think so!

Autumn Planting Of Hostas

In the North, you should be able to plant hostas at least through October, even where the winters come early. In the South, through November. Obviously it depends on the weather, so we’re not going to give you a specific date to stop planting. We think that most advice on how late to plant is rather conservative, which is fine. Sometimes it’s better to be safe, especially when you are advising others.

Autumn is about the only time I have to plant, so I generally carry it to the extreme and go almost until the ground freezes. I have no qualms about planting into December if the weather is reasonably nice. I find that nearly all of the winter losses I have are due to vermin. I suspect that when it is deciding which of your hostas to eat, it really doesn’t care when you planted it.

The advantage to ordering plants in the Autumn is that you will generally have significantly larger plants next year than if you wait until next spring to plant. Most nurserys would expect to propagate constantly, but the plants you receive in the Autumn usually are a full growing season older than those shipped in the spring. (Naturally, excepting the plants in the Bargain Bin that are listed as being smaller than the standard plants) I would probably be more conservative in planting the smaller varieties late in the year, especially in the North where the ground heaves during the winter. Their small root systems are much more vulnerable to damage than the larger varieties and they may not make it through a harsh winter if planted too late.

Our plants start going dormant here in October, depending on the night time temps and the variety, so at some point, the plants we ship are not going to have any leaves, and if they do have leaves, they’re going to look pretty awful. Just remember that pretty soon the plants in your garden are not going to be very pretty either. That’s the way hostas work and it’s nothing to panic about. Just plant with the rhizome and dormant eyes at about the same depth they were in the pot, or maybe a little deeper, water them in and leave them be until spring. This is the time of the year where your shed or workshop in your garden is used more for storing your garden tools etc and planning for next year.

Autumn planting guidelines are pretty much the same as for any other time of year. Plant in well drained soil and keep the plants well watered while they are getting established. It is important to make sure that the plants are not dry going into winter dormancy, they should be full of water when they go dormant.

Winter Losses Of Hostas

Hostas are among the sturdiest plants I’ve ever grown, and fortunately, Bridgewood seldom have any losses. But all living things can have their problems, and if you are going to lose a hosta, it’s probably going to happen over the winter or very early in the spring.

If you’ve lost one or more hostas over the winter, it’s probably easier than you think to determine the cause. As far as I know, and I’ve been growing these things for almost 30 years, there are no chronic diseases that will suddenly kill a hosta. Those few pests and diseases that hostas might contract, like nematodes, fungus diseases, and viruses, are generally an obvious problem with obvious symptoms years before they can kill a plant. Many of these pests and pathogens lead only to leaf damage and do not kill the plant.

Obviously there are things like accidental herbicide poisoning, a dog that waters your hostas every day, etc., but aside from these things that would be unique to your experience, there are only two significant causes of winter losses, mice, voles and crown rot. (OK, three if you live in areas where heaving is a problem. We’ll cover heaving at the end)

Voles feed on the plants from underground. You may think you don’t have voles, but unless you know what they are and how they live, and have actually looked for them, don’t make that assumption. Voles are very small, short-tailed field mice that live underground and about the only time you will see one is when your cat brings you a dead, furry present. They are very common in all areas, but because they burrow and live underground, most people never see them. Voles consider the starchy rhizome of a hosta a delicious treat, and they can destroy a plant or a whole group of plants in a very short time. Voles have to find your plants before they can eat them, so you may grow hostas for several years with no damage and then one year, they’re gone. Vole damage is much more common in the winter than at any other time of year.

When Bridgewood moved a couple years ago, the previous owner of the property had a few mature clumps of hostas scattered around the house. These plants had obviously been here a while, so they assumed that voles were not a major problem. They were way too busy that first year to do much planting but decided to put in a small hosta garden to get started. In the spring they found the entire area was undermined with vole runs and out of about 25 hostas, not a single plant was undamaged.

Essentially, voles are just mice that live underground, and control measures generally the same as those for mice anywhere, traps, poisons, or cats. You just have to be careful that your efforts do not harm pets or other wildlife. Newer methods, such as noise makers and castor oil sprays are also sometimes recommended, but I don’t know if they actually work or not. And lastly, you can use wire cages or other barriers to surround the roots and stop the voles from tunneling to the rhizome. There are a number of web sites that provide information on vole control. Just use your favorite search engine.

If you have a shed, workshop or maybe a summer house with a secure storage area then you can store these potentially dangerous items out of harm’s way. If not then you need to find somewhere else to keep these safe. Don’t take chances!

Crown Rot

The second possible cause of winter loss is crown rot, and it is a bit more complicated because it can be caused in several ways, but almost always by water, either too much or too little, or by freezing temps at the wrong time, or a combination. First the water factor. Usually the problem is too much water in the winter. In heavy soils, without good drainage, the plants often stay too wet in the winter and rot sets in. Hostas love water when they are actively growing, but not when they are dormant. Occasionally, crown rot can also be a problem if the plants do not get enough water in the autumn and are stressed when they go dormant.

The solution to this problem is to ensure that your hostas are planted in well drained soil. If your natural soil is heavy clay, you should add as much compost as your back will allow. If you can’t incorporate compost into your soil, you can add compost and topsoil to form raised beds so the water can drain away from the rhizome. Be careful with raised beds, because piling soil on top of tree roots can smother and kill a tree.

Crown rot can also be caused by a late spring freeze. Hostas are extremely hardy and can withstand very cold winter temps, as long as they are dormant. Things are different when the plant starts growing in the spring. Once the plant begins active growth, a late freeze can damage the plant or even kill it. Some varieties, like plantiginea or montana ‘Aureomarginata’, break dormancy very early in the spring and are difficult to grow in areas where late freezes are common. Virtually all hostas are susceptible to freeze damage, but the early risers tend to be hurt more often. Blue hostas seem to be especially susceptible to such damage.

If freezing temps occur after the leaves unfold, even a light freeze can turn the foliage to mush. Plants damaged by a light freeze will usually recover by summer. A hard freeze can be much more serious, and can lead to crown rot even if the leaves are still tightly furled and only the spear is showing.

So, if you’re not sure what happened, how can you tell why your plant died? The best way is to dig the plant and inspect the rhizome. It won’t hurt the plant, it’s too late for that, and if you have many hostas in the same area, you should find the cause of the problem before you lose them all.

If you dig up the remains and find that the plant is still there but the rhizome has turned mushy and the roots are brown and pull apart easily, the plant has rotted. On large plants, you may find that some of the rhizome is still firm and if you cut away all of the rotted flesh and dip the healthy part in a 10% bleach solution for a few minutes, you may be able to save something of the plant. If the whole rhizome is mushy, there is no hope of saving it.

If you find that the rhizome is not there any more, or if part of it has been eaten away, you have voles. Plants that rot take a while to completely decay and disappear, so if there’s nothing left, it’s been eaten. Sometimes you don’t even have to dig the plant, you can just stick your finger in the soil where it used to be and you will find the tunnel that the voles used to reach you hosta.

Over-wintering

Our over-wintering program starts before the plants go dormant. We try to make sure the plants go into winter well watered, with the soil moist but not wet. We leave the plants in unheated hoop houses covered with white plastic.

We also grow plants outside in containers. We cover these with a thermal blanket so they don’t continually freeze and thaw, covered with a layer of white plastic to conserve the moisture in the pot without letting additional rain or snow get them too wet. White plastic is better than clear because it reflects the sunlight. If you are holding plants in the shade, clear is probably fine. In the spring, we uncover before the plants break dormancy to avoid the leaves coming up under the plastic.

Since most of you do not have access to cold frames and thermal blankets, a reasonable alternative would be an unheated garage or a covering of leaves or other insulator outside. If you leave your plants outside and cover them with leaves or straw, either cover the pile with plastic or put the pots on their sides so water can’t get in. I would suggest including an ample supply of mouse bait with the pots to keep the mice from feasting over winter. Check the bait supply frequently and make sure you uncover the pots before the leaves come up.

Other than the possibility of being eaten, almost all losses occur during the winter or very early spring, and the cause is almost always crown rot. Spring is the worst time for us. We usually get quite a bit of rain or snow in March and April after we uncover, and that’s not a good thing unless the plants have broken dormancy and the leaves are growing. Plants break dormancy earlier under the plastic than in the ground, so we usually have to uncover them before we would like, and we almost always have late freezes after the plants break dormancy.

Ah, the late freezes. If a hosta freezes after the leaves start to unfurl, there is an excellent chance crown rot will set in. At the very least, the leaves will turn to mush and it will be weeks, maybe a month, or even more before it looks good again. If a late heavy frost or freeze is forecast, we have to heat the cold frames and recover the plants in the field. Our plants have to look good early in the season, so we have to try to avoid even minor leaf damage. Covering and uncovering thousands of plants is a colossal waste of time, especially when the forecast is almost always wrong, but every time we take a chance we get burned. You may not have to worry so much about frost, because the plants will recover, but it might take a while. If a freeze is forecast when the hostas have even partially open leaves, you should protect the plants.

A hard freeze often leads to crown rot, especially in blue varieties, and especially if the soil is wet. In a large plant, the rot may only affect part of the crown and the rotten part can be cut away. In smaller plants, it is usually fatal. If the leaves are still furled in a tight, pointed spear, hard to the touch, they can probably withstand a hard freeze with no damage, but if they have started to open only slightly, don’t take a chance.

What Can You Do

There are limits to what you can do to prevent winter losses. The problem is, losing plants to things like this is just part of gardening. You can’t control nature. But there are things you can do to limit the risk.

Obviously, you cannot stop late spring freezes, but you may be able to protect your plants from damage. If your hostas have broken through the soil surface and a freeze is coming, you should cover them with an insulating material. Nurseries generally use large cloth or plastic foam blankets specially made to provide several degrees of protection, but for hostas in the garden, covering individual plants or small groups is usually more practical.

Spring freezes often last only a few hours, so if you can provide an insulating barrier between the outside air and the warmer earth and plant, you can usually prevent damage. Anything from loose dry leaves to an overturned box or bucket with a weight on top is suitable. Try to keep the cover from touching the foliage, especially if you are using plastic sheets, so that there is an insulating air space between the cold air and the foliage.

If your plants are hit by a frost despite your efforts, there is nothing to do but cut off the mushy leaves and wait for them to regrow. I suggest waiting a couple days before you cut them back because after a light frost the leaves will sometimes appear to be damaged but will recover after a bit of warmer weather.

Last, there is heaving, which is apparently prevalent in areas that have significant temperature fluctuations that cause the ground to freeze and thaw repeatedly. It’s pretty common in the North, especially in years with little snow cover, but in over 30 years of growing hostas I have never had a hosta heave. Heaving is caused when the ground movement causes the plant to lift from the ground and expose the roots. Small or young plants are the most susceptible because they are not well anchored. If you have the problem in your area, mulching will be helpful. Be sure to pull the mulch away from the crown of the plant before it starts growing in the spring.

Growing Hostas in Containers

To start with, we do not recommend growing hostas in containers. Obviously it can be done, we grow thousands of pots here every year, but we also lose some of them every year. It may be just a few, it may be hundreds, but we know there are going to be losses. So if you’re going to grow hostas in containers, you have to accept the fact that one or two or all of them might die. If you have a conniption every time one of your plants dies, and especially if you think we’ll replace it if it dies, then just don’t try it.

The most common causes for failure of container grown hostas are poor drainage and late freezes, both of which can lead to crown rot. Just remember that when the plant goes dormant in the winter it does not need care, it needs protection. There is virtually nothing going on inside the plant during dormancy, so all you need to do is stop bad things from happening.

It really isn’t as hard as we might make it sound. If you’re trying it for the first time, we recommend you use the less expensive varieties, and you should probably stay away from blue varieties, which seem to be the hardest to grow in containers. Just be realistic and remember that Mother Nature didn’t design the plants to grow in pots, so you have to provide for them and accept the risk.

Most of the information below only applies to cold winter areas.

Growing Hostas Indoors

Hostas are not house plants. They need a period of dormancy induced by cold temperatures during the winter. All of the difficulties of growing hostas in containers are multiplied if you try to grow them indoors.

Watering

As with just about every aspect of hosta growing, water is a key factor in growing in containers. Potted hostas in active growth will almost always require hand watering, at least in the summer. How often they need watering will depend on the size of the plant, the size of the container, the type of soil, and whether they get natural rain. Just water them often enough to make sure they have plenty of moisture available during the spring and summer, and never dry out when they are in active growth, that is, the entire year except during winter dormancy.

Over-watering is the most likely cause of losses in the spring. Until hostas are fully leafed out, it is very easy to over-water them. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you how much water your plants needs. It depends on the potting soil you use, the drainage, the temperature, and the stage of growth of your plant. Too much water in the spring will result in crown rot, which is often fatal.

During dormancy, the plant should be kept just moist enough to prevent the soil from drawing the water out of the plant. The plant is not using water at this time, so you do not need to add any unless the soil is dry to the touch.

If you leave your pots outside during the winter in the rain and snow, the water in the soil will freeze, forming a solid plug even after the top of the soil thaws. If more water gets in the pot it cannot drain and the crown will sit in water, leading to – you guessed it, crown rot.

Potting Soil

Choices here range from whatever you can shovel up in the yard to bagged potting mixes. I would always recommend a commercial potting mix, preferably a mix that contains more than 50% composted bark. Our preferred mix contains 60% bark, 20% peat, and 20% perlite/vermiculite. Some growers use up to 100% bark. If you are going to keep a hosta in a pot for more than just a short time, drainage is extremely important. The temptation is to use a heavy mix that holds a lot of moisture so you don’t have to water so often, but if you use a poorly drained mix, heavy on peat, compost or dirt, your hostas are likely to – here it is again, rot.

Fertilising

I recommend a light touch with the fertiliser, probably a maximum of half of what the directions recommend. We stop feeding in early August here because we don’t want to encourage late growth before cold weather. Make sure you drench the plants heavily to wash out any salts occasionally, especially before winter. I recommend a balanced, general purpose fertiliser, but I don’t think it matters much what kind you use. Using too much or fertilising too late can lead to you know what.

Containers

Hostas do not like to be over-potted. We recommend growing in the smallest container that is practical. We say practical rather than possible, because the smaller the container, the more often you will have to water it and the sooner you will have to either divide the plant or pot it up. We start a plant in a 3½” pot if it will fit, then move it to a 4½”, then a gallon, then, after a year or two in a gallon, to a 2 or 3 gallon pot if the plant requires it. After quite a few years, we end with a 3, 7, 15, and up to a 25 gallon pot, depending on the plant.

It seems like a lot of trouble, and maybe it is, but putting a small plant in a large pot seems to be the easiest way to fail in container growing. Even if the plant seems to thrive during the summer, there is a very good chance that it will rot over the winter.

Over-wintering

Our over-wintering program starts before the plants go dormant. We try to make sure the plants go into winter well watered, with the soil moist but not wet. We leave the plants in unheated hoop houses covered with white plastic.

We also grow plants outside in containers. We cover these with a thermal blanket so they don’t continually freeze and thaw, covered with a layer of white plastic to conserve the moisture in the pot without letting additional rain or snow get them too wet. White plastic is better than clear because it reflects the sunlight. If you are holding plants in the shade, clear is probably fine. In the spring, we uncover before the plants break dormancy to avoid the leaves coming up under the plastic.

Since most of you do not have access to cold frames and thermal blankets, a reasonable alternative would be an unheated garage or a covering of leaves or other insulator outside. If you leave your plants outside and cover them with leaves or straw, either cover the pile with plastic or put the pots on their sides so water can’t get in. I would suggest including an ample supply of mouse bait with the pots to keep the mice from feasting over winter. Check the bait supply frequently and make sure you uncover the pots before the leaves come up.

Other than the possibility of being eaten, almost all losses occur during the winter or very early spring, and the cause is almost always crown rot. Spring is the worst time for us. We usually get quite a bit of rain or snow in March and April after we uncover, and that’s not a good thing unless the plants have broken dormancy and the leaves are growing. Plants break dormancy earlier under the plastic than in the ground, so we usually have to uncover them before we would like, and we almost always have late freezes after the plants break dormancy.

Ah, the late freezes. If a hosta freezes after the leaves start to unfurl, there is an excellent chance crown rot will set in. At the very least, the leaves will turn to mush and it will be weeks, maybe a month, or even more before it looks good again. If a late heavy frost or freeze is forecast, we have to heat the cold frames and recover the plants in the field. Our plants have to look good early in the season, so we have to try to avoid even minor leaf damage. Covering and uncovering thousands of plants is a colossal waste of time, especially when the forecast is almost always wrong, but every time we take a chance we get burned. You may not have to worry so much about frost, because the plants will recover, but it might take a while. If a freeze is forecast when the hostas have even partially open leaves, you should protect the plants.

A hard freeze often leads to crown rot, especially in blue varieties, and especially if the soil is wet. In a large plant, the rot may only affect part of the crown and the rotten part can be cut away. In smaller plants, it is usually fatal. If the leaves are still furled in a tight, pointed spear, hard to the touch, they can probably withstand a hard freeze with no damage, but if they have started to open only slightly, don’t take a chance.

Did I mention that crown rot is a serious problem in container growing?

Choosing Hostas

Probably the most difficult questions we get are the ones requesting help deciding which plants to buy.

I have no expertise in garden design, and even if I did, I don’t see how anyone could provide a design or suggest a plant list for an area they haven’t seen and know little or nothing about. I realize there are people who will do it, I just don’t know how. So I can’t tell you what hosta goes where, or looks good next to whatever. All I can do is tell you the ones I personally like, and at the same time warn you that I really don’t know why anyone would care. I like all of them.

The differences between most of the 300 or so hostas available can be boiled down to three essentials; how large they’ll get, what they cost, and what they look like. To decide which hostas are best for you, you simply have to eliminate all of them that are too large, too small, and too expensive, and from what’s left, you pick which ones you like best. It’s the same decision you make every time you shop for clothes, cars or any number of things you buy. Except with hostas it’s very hard to make a mistake. We don’t sell ugly hostas. Even when we occasionally list a plant that may not be a good choice for the average gardener for some reason, we’ll tell you so. It really doesn’t matter which ones I like, they’re not going in my garden.

My suggestion is to sit down in your garden shed or workshop and just jump in there. Look at the pictures and pick the ones you like. Generally you’ll find that you like the plants even better than the pictures.

Blue Hostas

The availability of hostas changes frequently, so some of the varieties mentioned here may not always be available. We realize it would be better if everything was always available, but it doesn’t often work out that way.

Everybody loves blue hostas. There aren’t many plants that can give you this kind of colour in the garden. This one is ‘Halcyon’ one of my favorites, but there are blue hostas of every size and shape to choose from, from little ones like ‘Blue Mouse Ears’ with leaves just 2-3″ across, to giants like ‘Blue Angel’ which can form clumps up to 6′ or more wide.

The first thing to know about blue hostas is that they’re not really blue. Not all the way through anyway. The blue colour actually comes from a waxy coating on the leaf. As the season progresses, this coating can melt off in the heat of the summer, especially in the South, and can wash off in heavy rains or frequent overhead watering. So generally, these plants are the bluest in the spring and as the season progresses, they will gradually lose the blue coating and will turn green. The colour tends to be better and last longer in areas where the summers are not too hot.

There are three main groups of blue hostas; the sieboldiana types, the tardianas, and the tokudama types. With all of the hybridizing being done now, there are varieties that don’t fall neatly into place, but most blues will fall into one of these groups.

Sieboldiana Hostas

Probably the most familiar of these are the sieboldiana types. The most common is H. ‘Elegans’, (pictured at right) with huge rounded, corrugated leaves. Generally, most of the large leaved blue hostas are referred to as sieboldiana types, and most are derived from ‘Elegans’. Typically, they are large to very large plants, often with heavily textured leaves. Generally they are slow growing, but given time, some of them can form mounds up to 6′ across.

Tardianas Hostas

The second group, the tardianas, originated in England when Eric Smith crossed an unusually late blooming plant of sieboldiana ‘Elegans’ with H. tardiflora. ‘Elegans’ normally blooms early in the summer and tardiflora blooms in the fall, so it may be that these two plants had never been crossed before. And of all the crosses that hosta hybridizers have ever made, this is the one I wish I had made first. From this single cross came some of the best blue hostas ever introduced.

Smith named four plants from this cross, and using these as parents, produced a second generation from which he named 27 plants, and a third, from which he named a single plant. At first he gave each plant only an identifier that noted the generation and seedling number. They were later all named, but you will often see Smith’s identifier listed with the plant, as in H. ‘Halcyon’ (TF 1 x 7) indicating that it is seedling number 7 from the first generation. Other breeders have used these plants in their programs to produce a large number of terrific hostas that are often called tardiana types, but there are only 32 true tardianas, and only these have the “TF” designator.

And what’s so great about them? The colour. Not all of them, but several have the best blue colour I’ve ever seen on a hosta. Even when I see a plant that is touted as being “the bluest hosta yet”, one or both of its parents is usually a tardiana. colour varies from place to place and time to time, but for me, few hostas can compare to the powdery, baby blue leaves of ‘Halcyon’ when it first comes up in the spring.

The tardianas are mostly small to medium size plants. A couple might be considered large plants, but none approach the size of the sieboldiana types. Some have the puckered leaves and cupping we see in the sieboldianas, but most do not.

Tokudama Hostas

H. ‘Tokudama’ and its hybrids comprise the third group. ‘Tokudama’ was once considered a species, but it is now generally accepted that it is a hybrid, probably of sieboldiana lineage.

Most exhibit the same rounded leaf form, with varying degrees of cupping and puckering, but are smaller than the sieboldiana types.

The tokudamas generally have good blue colour and interesting leaf texture, but many are slow growing. There are many tokudama hybrids available, and there are a few, especially the larger types like ‘Abiqua Drinking Gourd’, pictured here, and ‘Love Pat’, that are among my favorite blues. In general though, I prefer the tardianas for their better colour and faster growth.

Misc Blue Hostas

And lastly, there are what I’ll call miscellaneous types. All of these probably have one of the above types in their background, but may be several generations away.

In many cases they have kept the blue colour but not the other characteristics common to most of the three main groups. ‘Fragrant Blue’, at right, and ‘Azure Snow’ are two fairly well known plants that are not generally included among these groups.

All these should give your thoughts whilst you sit in your shed in your garden.

Gold Hostas

The list of hostas changes frequently, so some of the varieties mentioned here may not always be available. It would be better if everything was always available, but it doesn’t work that way around here.

Your sainted mother or ‘other half’ might not care for gold hostas. Seems they look like they’re sick. Actually, lots of people don’t care for gold hostas. But when you look at our growing area at dusk, when everything has receded into a mass of gray-green, the gold hostas stand out like someone was shining a flashlight on them. A nice, bright gold hosta certainly draws attention. They are also great companions for blue hostas. If you don’t like them, there are plenty of other choices, but before you move on, think about the first place your eye landed when you opened this page.

One thing to remember with gold hostas is that in order to show their best color, most of them need a bit of morning sun, or at least fairly bright light. Just as green hostas get deeper green with less light, so do the gold ones. So gold hostas may not be the best choice for areas with little light, where they tend to be limey, greenish yellow or chartreuse. Not that there’s anything wrong with chartreuse, it just isn’t gold, so while the plant may still be beautiful, the color may not be what you expect. The plant of ‘August Moon’ above, contrasts nicely with the dark green Sweet Woodruff, but would be much brighter yellow if given more sun.

Conversely, we are often asked which hostas do best in sunny areas, and generally, our recommendations include those with gold foliage. ‘Squash Casserole’, for instance is one of the best hostas we have come across for growing in sunny areas. Others that are often recommended for sun tolerance are ‘Gold Regal’, ‘Golden Sculpture’ and ‘Sun Power’. Just remember to provide them with plenty of water and don’t let them dry out completely if you plant them in the sun.

I suspect that there is really no difference between gold and green hostas in their ability to tolerate sun, as long as we are comparing plants with similar leaf substance. Both will suffer edge burn if allowed to dry out and both will change color. The reason we find gold hostas better for the sun is the nature of the color change. We like deep dark green leaves, so when the sun bleaches a green hosta, we lose the good color and need to move it to a position with more shade.

Utilise your garden or potting shed when making your choice. As this helps to concentrate the mind on what might be best for your garden and will look the best.

With gold hostas, the bleaching is seldom objectionable and sometimes actually improves the appearance of the plant. The plants are both reacting the same way to the light level.

Some yellow hostas are viridescent. That means that they are yellow in the spring, when they first come up, but turn green later in the summer. This is probably not an endearing quality, but we often grow the plants anyway because some of the absolute brightest and best yellow foliage is seen on viridescent plants. There is some logic involved here, because plants have to produce chlorophyll to survive.

The stunning yellow leaves on some plants such as ‘Fire Island’ and ‘Eye Declare’ are so bright because there is little green in the leaf to mute the yellow. These plants turn green in the summer so they can produce and store enough food to survive.

Others yellow hostas are lutescent, which means they come up green and change to gold as the season progresses. ‘Gold Standard’ is probably the best known example of a lutescent hosta. When it comes up in the spring, there is no hint that it is anything other than a green plant. Gradually the leaves develop a beautiful gold color, while the margins remain dark green.

Green Hostas

The list of hostas changes frequently, so some of the varieties mentioned here may not always be available. It would be better if everything was always available, but it doesn’t work that way around here.

You can probably just skip over this part quickly and move on, cause nobody gives a hoot about green hostas. I can here you all now, “Oh, that’s not true…” Well, I’ve been selling hostas for 25 years and I know what you guys buy, and you don’t buy many green hostas. And that’s too bad, because not only are there some great green hostas out there, but you need green hostas in your garden.

The best garden is not the one with the most flowers and the brightest colors. A hosta garden with nothing but variegated plants is just too busy. It’s like painting each window frame on your house a different color. You need green hostas as a foil to show off the variegated plants. To add some subtlety to the garden. You need green hostas.

The green giants are not too hard to sell. Everyone likes the big hostas and some of the largest are green. ‘Komodo Dragon’, ‘Vim and Vigor’, and the other huge plants are always popular. Green hostas with piecrust edges are semi-popular too, like ‘Niagara Falls’ at left, mostly because there aren’t too many variegated plants with true piecrust edges.

And lastly, Hosta plantaginea, the August Lily, is fairly popular because it has immense fragrant flowers, unlike those on any other hosta. Unfortunately, it is best grown in warmer climates and we don’t think they are the best choice for Northern gardens. They emerge early in the spring and in areas where late frosts are common, they can suffer leaf damage and a late hard freeze can lead to crown rot and kill them.

They also need a long growing season to bloom and after all the trouble of growing them, gardeners in the North may not see the flowers. On the other hand, since these problems are due mainly to the fact that plantaginea is native to Southeastern China, a warmer climate than other native hosta habitats, it is probably the best hosta for growing in the warmers areas of the UK.

A lot more interesting green hostas would be available if the demand was there for them.

Fragrant Hostas

Fragrant hostas are important both because they are fragrant (obviously), and, not so obviously, because they are often recommended as the best hostas for warmer areas or for sunny locations.

Depending on what you read and who you believe, there are probably twenty-something hosta species found in the wild, but only one, H. plantaginea, has fragrant flowers. Every fragrant hosta is either a sport or a hybrid of plantaginea. Not only is it the only fragrant species, its pure white flowers are by far the largest of any hosta, 5″ or more in length and over 2″ wide. No other species comes anywhere close. Many of the fragrant hybrids have larger than normal flowers also, but as far as I know, none are as large as the species.

If you live in the South, areas where the winters aren’t too cold and the summers are too hot, growing hostas can be difficult. The further south you live, the more trouble you are going to have. For those who grow hostas in warm winter areas, some varieties are better than others. Because plantaginea is native to Southern China, which is the warmest area of the genus’ natural habitat, it is more adapted to warmer climates than most hostas.

H. plantaginea is also known as the August Lily, because it blooms so late in the season. It is a unique and beautiful hosta, and you would think it would be one of our most popular plants. And it probably would be, except that it’s not often grown. For the nursery it can be nothing but trouble. Something in it’s genes makes it among the first of the hostas to break dormancy in the spring. That’s probably fine in southern China, but here it often gets hit by a late freeze after the leaves come up, turning them to mush.

A late freeze can lead to crown rot, which will sometimes kills the plant, but more often the damage is limited to the leaves and the plant will eventually grow new foliage and fully recover by the summer. While that may be acceptable in the garden, and with a bit of effort even preventable, unreliable plants are not good for spring selling around here.

The other problem is that unless the plant has a long summer growing season, it may not produce flowers. Gardeners in the northern half of the country may find that it is not a dependable bloomer, and without flowers, it’s hardly worth the effort. That doesn’t mean that it can’t be successfully grown in the North, just that we’ve been disappointed enough times to decide that it’s not worth the trouble for the nursery to grow.

For those who can grow H. plantaginea successfully, we do try to offer it after the danger of a hard freeze is over in our area, if we can find it available from other growers. There are many places in the country where it can be grown, in fact, in warm winter areas it may be the best variety to grow.

We recommend that you try the plant at least once. Even in the cold winter areas, people have grown the plant for many years. Sometimes the weather co-operates and sometimes it doesn’t. It is totally unique among hostas and if you can grow it you will love it.

All is not lost however. Many of the plantaginea hybrids, especially ‘Fragrant Bouquet’ and its many sports have wonderfully fragrant flowers. Admittedly they are not as large as the species, nor quite as fragrant, but they come pretty close. And the hybrids generally break dormancy later than the species and do not need as long a growing season to produce flowers. While they still may need some protection from a late frost, they can be much easier to grow in the North than the species.

And in the South, while the hybrids may not be quite as heat tolerant as plantaginea, given adequate water in the summer, they are probably better suited to hot, humid conditions than most hostas. Because blue hostas in general do not hold up well in the South, ‘Fragrant Blue’ may be an exception.

White Centred Hostas

I get a lot of emails that start out “My neighbour says he/she saw a white hosta….” Inevitably, the writer thinks it would be great to have a pure white hosta in their garden. Well, it would, except that the hosta would die. Of course, if it didn’t die, you would really have something, cause everybody else’s died. But it would die.

If we think back to biology 101, plants use chlorophyll to produce food, and chlorophyll is green. My friend Jim Anderson of Winterberry Farms has pointed out that white areas of the leaves, on the margins or in the centre, or wherever, are essentially made up of parasitic tissue. These areas without chlorophyll must be supported by the plant, but do not produce any food.

So, if a white hosta can’t survive, how did your neighbour see one? Well, because not everything I write here is totally true. Some of it’s mostly true, and as I’ve said before, sometimes I just make stuff up. In this case, the information above is mostly true. Hostas with pure white leaves cannot survive because they cannot make food to keep the plant alive. But there are some pure white hostas that are only pure white for a little while.

If the white hosta should turn green long enough each year to produce enough food, it can survive. The process is called viridescence. At some point during the growing season, the white areas of the leaf turn green, and so technically, it’s no longer a pure white hosta.

Obviously, most of us would prefer that the plant would not turn green, but then we would have the pure white hosta, until it died. There are a number of white, viridescent hostas, and most of them that I have tried have not been very vigorous. We grow two cultivars that emerge with pure white leaves in the spring, ‘White Wall Tires’ and our introduction, ‘Mountain Mist’. Both of these plants gradually turn green early enough in the season to allow them to survive and multiply.

White centred hostas are very popular now, and our comments about white leaf tissue applies to them also. Whether these plants are easy or difficult to grow depends on whether the white centre turns green in summer and on the ratio of white centre area to green margin. Again it all boils down to whether the plant has enough green tissue, either in the margin or after the white centre turns green, to produce enough food to support the plant. And for many, the trick is to give the plant as much light as you can without burning the more delicate white tissue to a crisp.

Plants like ‘White Christmas’, with a lot of white in the leaf and relatively narrow green margins, can only be grown because the white centres turn green in the summer, and they can only be grown well if they are given plenty of light. Sometimes you may have to experiment with locating a plant like this to find an area that provides plenty of light without burning the leaves. And of course, if you are going to give the plant more light, you may have to give it more water to make sure it doesn’t dry out. ‘White Christmas’ is certainly more of a challenge than most hostas, but if you can get a plant that looks like this for even a few months, it’s certainly worth it.

(Because of the number of people who have had problems with this plant, we seldom offer it any more. If you find it offered here or elsewhere and want to try it, it can be grown successfully, but not easily.)

There are some white centred hostas that are not at all difficult to grow. ‘Night Before Christmas’, at right, which is a tetraploid form of ‘White Christmas’, has a large, dramatic white centre, but it also has wide, dark green margins, so there is enough green tissue in the leaf to produce a large vigorous plant. ‘American Sweetheart’ is another tetraploid that we have had good success with.

Because they are tetraploids, these two also have thicker leaves, and so they have less problem with the white areas developing brown areas and holes, or “melting out”, in the summer. Sit down in your summer house or shed and take the time to take this in before deciding that’s what I recommend.

There are a number of other cultivars that are not that hard to grow, but since they are not tetraploids, their thinner leaves may melt out in the summer, especially in warmer areas. ‘Summer Music’, ‘Cascades’, ‘Lakeside Meter Maid’ and ‘White Christmas’ are among the many white centred plants that are certainly worth trying, even if they are a bit more of a challenge.

There are also a number of these plants that we have given up on. The fact that we stop growing a hosta doesn’t necessarily mean you shouldn’t grow it. It just means that for one reason or another, we can’t produce the plant profitably. It may not grow well in containers or grow so slowly that it takes too long to produce a saleable plant.

For us, the most disappointing of the white centred hostas was ‘Remember Me’, the white centred form of ‘Halcyon’. Our supplier donated a portion of the cost of each plant to breast cancer research, so we wanted to sell it. It wasn’t that we couldn’t grow the plant, it was just so slow that we finally gave up on it. On the other hand, we’ve seen some beautiful specimens in other people’s gardens, so you might want to try it.

We’ve also given up on all of the white centred sports of ‘Francee’, Patriot’, and ‘Minuteman’. There are a number of these on the market, ‘Fire and Ice’, ‘Loyalist’, ‘Flash of Light’, and probably more that I can’t think of. All of them are beautiful plants, but I’ve not had good luck with any of them.

Some gardeners are adventurous types who consider hard to grow plants a challenge and are willing to try anything once or twice. And there are those who cry for three days every time a hosta dies. If you like to experiment, don’t let my experiences hold you back. Just because the nurseries don’t grow some of these plants for sale doesn’t mean they don’t grow them for themselves. Not all hostas perform equally in all areas of the country, and plants that may not do well in my area often grow much better further north.

Tetraploid Hostas

Very simply, a tetraploid plant has four sets of chromosomes rather than two. This can occur naturally, rarely, or can be induced chemically. Diploids, with two sets of chromosomes, are the norm. In hostas, as far as I know, only H. ventricosa is a naturally occurring tetraploid species. Induced tetraploids are very common in the day lily world, but are a fairly recent development in hostas. ‘Patriot’, and ‘Grand Tiara’, two of the earliest and best known, were both registered in 1991, but only fairly recently has there been a concerted effort to convert a large number of popular diploid hostas.

Certain herbicides, such as Surflan, are known to occasionally induce tetraploidy, and presumably the earliest conversions were accidental byproducts of herbicide use. Recently, breeders, hobbyists, and especially tissue culture labs have been using chemicals to try to produce them intentionally, and the availability of converted plants has been increasing rapidly.

Tetraploid hostas generally have thicker leaves, more pronounced variegation, darker colour, larger flowers on thicker scapes, and because the leaves and leaf petioles are thicker and stiffer, the form of the plant may be more upright. Because the leaves are thicker, it also seems logical that they may be more resistant to slugs and other causes of leaf damage.

I think that one of the most important benefits shows up in the white-centred hostas, where the tetraploid forms are often less likely to burn and melt out in the centres. An example is ‘Island Charm’ which I stopped growing some time ago because it didn’t hold up well for me. It’s tetraploid form, ‘Fantasy Island’ is an excellent grower here, and may be the best small, white-centred hosta I’ve grown.

Another example is ‘American Sweetheart’, which has a much thicker, more durable leaf than ‘Sea Thunder’. And just to show that there are always exceptions, there are ‘Fire and Ice’, ‘Loyalist’, ‘Flash of Light’ and probably others, all white centred sports of the tetraploid forms of ‘Francee’. We have never had any luck getting these hostas to grow and no longer carry any of them. They just don’t seem to have enough green tissue in their leaves to grow well.

Hosta ‘Patriot’, at the top, is a tetraploid form of ‘Francee’, below. In this case, I think that most would consider the tetraploid a distinct improvement, with wider margins and darker centre.

As in the day lily world, though, not all hosta fanciers consider every tetraploid an improvement over the original form. While I can’t think of many of these new introductions that I don’t like, there are some that I don’t necessarily consider to be better than the original, just different.

In some cases, it’s difficult to know for certain whether a plant is actually a tetraploid without testing. Listed on the left below are some fairly common hostas, and on the right are their probable tetraploid forms. ‘St. Paul’ and ‘Paradise Glory’ both seem to me to be likely tetraploids, but the nurseries that introduced them do not indicate that they are, so I’m just guessing.

There are quite a few others than the ones mentioned, and new ones are being introduced each year. I suspect that someday many more of our popular hostas will have tetraploid forms available.

Hostas For Sunny Areas

Hostas are generally considered shade plants, but any hosta can be grown in full sun. The only down side of growing them in the sun is that they usually don’t look good. If, for some reason you want to grow ugly hostas, then sun is no problem.

First of all, full sun means sun during the middle of the day when it’s hot and uncomfortable. Except maybe in the deep South, early morning sun and late afternoon sun are not full sun. That’s just bright light. And if you have an area with hot, intense sun for any significant amount of time, why are you trying to grow shade plants there?

Instead of trying to figure out how to plant hostas where they’re probably going to burn up, why not just plant something that likes the sun? There are tons of good plants for full sun at most good specialised nurseries

If you have to grow hostas and you have to grow them in the sun, the most important thing you can do for the plants is keep them well watered. If you keep them well watered, there are a few varieties that may do well enough in the sun to be worthwhile, but if they dry out, they are very likely to burn. The American Hosta Society publishes a grower’s guide that lists the following hostas that we offer as “sun tolerant”.

August Moon, Invincible, So Sweet, Fortunei Aureomarginata, Patriot, Sum and Substance, Fragrant Bouquet, plantaginea, Summer Fragrance, Francee, Regal Splendor, Gold Standard, Royal Standard.

Probably any hosta with fragrant flowers could be added to this list. Hosta plantaginea is the only species with fragrant flowers, and all fragrant hostas have plantaginea in their blood line. Plantaginea is also the southernmost growing species in its native range, so these varieties seem to be better in sunny spots than most. Listed below are fragrant flowered hybrids we offer that would be worth trying, and of course there are others. There is some duplication in the two lists.

Diana Remembered, Invincible, Sugar and Cream, Fragrant Bouquet, Royal Standard, Sugar and Spice, Fragrant Dream, So Sweet, Summer Fragrance, Guacamole, Stained Glass, Sweet Innocence.

Many yellow hostas are suitable for sunny areas. We have too many to list here, but most are worth a try.

Hostas with blue leaves are probably not a good choice for sunny areas. The blue colour is a result of a waxy coating on the leaf, which melts and disintegrates in the heat.