Navigating Hostas
Posted in Gardening Tips on June 9 2011, by Ann Rafalko
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Sonia Uyterhoeven is Gardener for Public Education. |
There is nothing inherently complex about hostas. They are easy-to-grow, readily available, adaptable foliage plants for the shade garden. The problem with hostas is that they have a predisposition toward mutation, and there is a glut of similar looking cultivars on the market.
So how do you navigate the vast selection of these ubiquitous shade lovers to find a few outstanding specimens for your garden? The Azalea Garden provides an ideal opportunity for window shopping, offering ideas for choice cultivars and tips on how to integrate them into your woodland landscape design. In this new garden, azaleas are paired with ferns, sedges, grasses, and woodland perennials.
Hostas come from Japan, China, and Korea. The common name was once plantain-lily and the former Latin name, Funkia, was often used as a common name as well. There are around 45 species of hosta with over 7,000 cultivars. Two well-known species are the fragrant Chinese Hosta plantaginea and the waxy glaucous (blue) Japanese Hosta sieboldiana. They are parents to a myriad of successful cultivars on the market. Members of the plantaginea group tend to be heat lovers, while members of the sieboldiana group cannot take too much sun and warmth, their waxy blue coating starts to melt and turns green.
Hostas are notorious for having split personalities, meaning they sometimes change color during the course of the season. There are terms for this type of color instability: A hosta that changes from yellow or white to green is called viridescence; a change from green to yellow is called lutescence; and from yellow to white albescence.
Hostas are often classified by size: dwarf, miniature, small, medium, large, or giant. Each category has a different height range (given in inches) and average leaf size (given in square inches). For example, a giant hosta is over 28 inches tall and has a leaf surface area of greater than 144 square inches.
Learn more about hosta care and see a list of recommended plants below.