After I'd been bitten by the hosta love bug I tried to find places to purchse them and believe it or not I found a lot of them on Ebay [when Ebay was a fun place to shop...no longer!!].
It all started with a lowly leaf show at the local arboretum, I loved what I saw so much that I joined the hosta society that was hosting the show. I also started looking on the web to see what was available and found the most fabulous site, it's called the Hosta Library. The URL is http://www.hostalibrary.org/ and I recommend that you take a look there. There are fabulous pictures of literally thousands of different hostas. Also, on the home page of the Hoats Library you'll see "links", there are a lot of good resources there, check them out.
Other places that were quite helpful to me were the different garden forums. My favorite is Hallson's Gardens. They have a garden center in Michigan, and also host a terific online forum for a lot of different kinds of plants. The URL to their site is http://www.perennialnursery.com/forums/index.php It's easy to sign up and it's free. There isn't a nicer group of people on the web than these folks!
There's also the American Hosta Society, which offers a wide array of information and expertise. It's well worth a look and they love getting new members. Their URL is http://www.americanhostasociety.org/
Happy hostaing,
CD~
Showing posts with label hostas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hostas. Show all posts
Friday, June 19, 2009
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
More on being a hostaholic
Thought I'd share another hosta photo or two with you today to show you what not to do if you start adding them to your garden.
When I started collecting hostas in 2005 I had no concept of size. I would purchase small Tissue Cultures (tc), pop them in the ground and nurture them. I guarded them against encroaching weeds and watered them regularly. They rewarded me by growing into mounds of beautiful foliage.
Most of my purchases were through the internet, there were so many more there to choose from than at the local nursery. Unfortunately when looking at them online there was no sense of scale, so I was clueless as to what the mature size of the plant was, I thought that the hostas would fill out, not increase in mass the way they have.
Here's a photo of a small spot that has way too many hostas packed in it. I'll be moving them around a bit so that they can spread out and mature as they should.
Here's another spot that had way too much going on here. It isn't as bad, because the hostas here consist of minis and dwarf varieties, but it's still way too crowded.
The gardens are a work in progress, I'm always moving things around in the landscape and replanting. This isn't a bad thing, as things grow they need either pruned or moved. especially with hostas. I have a few that were very tempermental. They failed in health, so I did what I thought right and that was to move the hosta to a spot that would give it more sun light. Yes light. I know we all think that hostas are shade plants, but in truth they are shade tolerant. they need light to flourish just like any other chlorophyll producing plant.
Here is a picture of one of my mature hostas, this is hosta 'Gold Standard'. A wonderful plant, I recommend that everyone have this one. Talk about the easiest plant there is to grow, this one is a winnder every time.
Sigh, I don't know what I'm going to do when all my hostas mature, I might have to move!
CD~
When I started collecting hostas in 2005 I had no concept of size. I would purchase small Tissue Cultures (tc), pop them in the ground and nurture them. I guarded them against encroaching weeds and watered them regularly. They rewarded me by growing into mounds of beautiful foliage.
Most of my purchases were through the internet, there were so many more there to choose from than at the local nursery. Unfortunately when looking at them online there was no sense of scale, so I was clueless as to what the mature size of the plant was, I thought that the hostas would fill out, not increase in mass the way they have.
Here's a photo of a small spot that has way too many hostas packed in it. I'll be moving them around a bit so that they can spread out and mature as they should.
Here's another spot that had way too much going on here. It isn't as bad, because the hostas here consist of minis and dwarf varieties, but it's still way too crowded.
The gardens are a work in progress, I'm always moving things around in the landscape and replanting. This isn't a bad thing, as things grow they need either pruned or moved. especially with hostas. I have a few that were very tempermental. They failed in health, so I did what I thought right and that was to move the hosta to a spot that would give it more sun light. Yes light. I know we all think that hostas are shade plants, but in truth they are shade tolerant. they need light to flourish just like any other chlorophyll producing plant.
Here is a picture of one of my mature hostas, this is hosta 'Gold Standard'. A wonderful plant, I recommend that everyone have this one. Talk about the easiest plant there is to grow, this one is a winnder every time.
Sigh, I don't know what I'm going to do when all my hostas mature, I might have to move!
CD~
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Confessions of a Hostaholic
Not certain what they say about “collectors”, but it’s probably not good. As I’ve alluded to you in past posts I have a few collections that I’ve amassed over the past years [rolling eyes]. Now I don’t collect for the rarity of the items, these are solely for my enjoyment, not for investment purposes. Unfortunately I have a very short attention span, so I may collect something with gusto for a few years, but then it's as if someone pulls the plug out of the power socket, the love affair wanes and interest is gone. It has been that way with everything so far, except for my hosta collection.
Hostas are a wonderful genus of plant that I stumbled onto in 2005. On a whim my sisters and I visited a local arboretum where they were holding their annual hosta show and sale. Now I should probably preface this with a note that I had the ‘green ones’, the ‘green ones with a white edge’, the ‘white ones with a green edge’, what more could there be?
Anyway, we walked in and were expecting to see pots of green leafy plants similar to those dotting my landscape, but instead there was row upon row of tables holding a sea of bud vases, with each one containing one solitary leaf. All were rigidly sticking straight up, held in that place by wads of cotton balls that had been stuffed in the mouth of the vases around the stems. We chuckled at the absurdity of the hosta show [it did look dumb], but after the joking faded away we were intrigued , because we had no idea there was such an extensive selection of hostas available! The sizes ranged from small leaves, an inch in length (dwarf), to those that were fourteen inches in diameter (x-large). We scoured all of the entries and jotted down the names of those that struck us as fabulous. We were awed by everything. There was even a selection of hosta flowers on display, one in particular really stood out; it was a flower scape from H. 'Victory’ which was six feet tall. It was in a vase seated on the floor, it was so tall it towered over us.
After we scrutinized all there was to see we went to look at the hosta vendors’ offerings. The sensation I got when I walked into the sales area was that of looking at a menu in a Greek diner. There was so much to choose from I didn’t know what to buy, and so being overwhelmed I only bought a lovely small ruffled one named H. “Candy Dish”.
Needless to say that first plant sowed the seeds to my hosta addiction and I've increassed from that one small plant to almost three hundred named varieties. I’ve lost a few to winter heaving, but for the most part they are a fabulously easy plant to cultivate!
Here are a few of my babies.
CD~
'Northern Mist'
'Abba Dabba Do' and 'Sum & Substance"
'Clifford's Comet'
'Javelin' the streaked leaves in the middle, with 'Orange Slices' (the clump of tiny bright yellow leaves to the right), a bit of 'Powered by Bob' shows at the very forefront and that's a baby 'Victory' at the rear of the photo (I want those six foot flower scapes!)
Hostas are a wonderful genus of plant that I stumbled onto in 2005. On a whim my sisters and I visited a local arboretum where they were holding their annual hosta show and sale. Now I should probably preface this with a note that I had the ‘green ones’, the ‘green ones with a white edge’, the ‘white ones with a green edge’, what more could there be?
Anyway, we walked in and were expecting to see pots of green leafy plants similar to those dotting my landscape, but instead there was row upon row of tables holding a sea of bud vases, with each one containing one solitary leaf. All were rigidly sticking straight up, held in that place by wads of cotton balls that had been stuffed in the mouth of the vases around the stems. We chuckled at the absurdity of the hosta show [it did look dumb], but after the joking faded away we were intrigued , because we had no idea there was such an extensive selection of hostas available! The sizes ranged from small leaves, an inch in length (dwarf), to those that were fourteen inches in diameter (x-large). We scoured all of the entries and jotted down the names of those that struck us as fabulous. We were awed by everything. There was even a selection of hosta flowers on display, one in particular really stood out; it was a flower scape from H. 'Victory’ which was six feet tall. It was in a vase seated on the floor, it was so tall it towered over us.
After we scrutinized all there was to see we went to look at the hosta vendors’ offerings. The sensation I got when I walked into the sales area was that of looking at a menu in a Greek diner. There was so much to choose from I didn’t know what to buy, and so being overwhelmed I only bought a lovely small ruffled one named H. “Candy Dish”.
Needless to say that first plant sowed the seeds to my hosta addiction and I've increassed from that one small plant to almost three hundred named varieties. I’ve lost a few to winter heaving, but for the most part they are a fabulously easy plant to cultivate!
Here are a few of my babies.
CD~
'Northern Mist'
'Abba Dabba Do' and 'Sum & Substance"
'Clifford's Comet'
'Javelin' the streaked leaves in the middle, with 'Orange Slices' (the clump of tiny bright yellow leaves to the right), a bit of 'Powered by Bob' shows at the very forefront and that's a baby 'Victory' at the rear of the photo (I want those six foot flower scapes!)
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