Growing Hostas

I love hostas… of all the plants I grow, hostas are definitely my favorite because they take so little care and yet they always look so spectacular all season long. (You really can’t say that about most other plants.) I now have hundreds of hostas in my gardens. Many of them are more than six feet across and really should be divided, but this will have to wait until next spring, when I will be moving many of my larger hostas to a new garden that is now still in the developmental stage. This year we have been busy moving younger hostas from their nursery beds to a more permanent location. For several years I have been interested in hybridizing hostas, and many of my hostas are ones I have started from seeds. Although it is impossible to predict what the resulting plants will look like, hybridizing can create some very striking hostas with different colors, leaf shapes, and textures.

Our acid soil is perfect for growing hostas, as is our cooler climate, which gives them the dormancy period they need (about 700 hours of temperatures below 40°F). Many people think a hosta can grow only in shade, but hostas actually do very well in partial sunlight. Dense shade will produce a stunted hosta with thinner and fewer leaves. Like most other plants, hostas do best in rich organic soil with an ideal pH between 6 and 6.5.

Filed Under Plants in my Gardens, Hosta