Hostas - Gorgeous Hostas
If you haven’t a hosta in your shade garden, think again! The leaves are more important than the flowers. That’s what it’s all about. Glorious color and texture make a perfect backdrop or focal point in any shade garden.
Dark greens and blues, golds, light greens and chartreuses. Don’t forget the different textures and shapes in the leaves - puckered, strapleaf, cupped shape, heart shaped and more.
Sizes? Well teeny weeny to gigunda - Big Daddy - a blue, puckered sucker clumps to 36” wide by 24” tall. At the other end of the spectrum - we have a “Little Petey Goldflash” in our garden for the past ten years or so - tiny chartreuse leaves - I think the plant is about 9” x 9” tops. Clumps of three - Wowee!
When designing a shade garden, I always suggest a few hosta to add to the bed and suggest planting them along with other perennials in clumps of threes or fives with repetition of one or more of the varieties within the garden, depending on space and budget, of course. By doing this, when a visitor looks at the garden, they see symmetry and balance and a flow to the plantings.
AND it’s not about the quantity of plants or how many types of plants you use, but how the plants chosen contribute to the overall structure of the garden. It is pleasing to the eye? Does it fill the space? Does it look “Mahvelous, Dahling?”
So because I just love hosta and what they can add to the garden, you can bet I’ll have several worked into my design. Folks who say that they don’t like hosta - really haven’t seen the latest and greatest. It ain’t your grandma’s hosta anymore.
We didn’t even talk about color yet - but bold stripes - white centers with dark
green edges (Fire & Ice), or dark green leaves with broad snow-white margins
(Patriot), Gold (Sun Power) and on and on.
Oh, the flowers? Pure white to lavender - large to tiny. Some a bit fragrant too.
July to August blooming. All prefer part shade and a humousy, moisture
retentive soil.
So, try a few! AND Hosta la vista, Baby!
