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Hooray for Hostas
by Brendan Little
January

Hostas are best described as flowering foliage plants with a wide range of single colour or variegated leaves, leaf colours include shades of blue, grey, beige, gold and yellow.

All Hostas produce flowers and the colour range runs from white through to blue, lavender, and lilac to deep purple.

At the mention of the word Hosta most gardeners will simply reply slugs, walk away and simply forget the genus altogether. What a pity! Within the genus you will find some of the most noble, soundly perennial garden plants. Hostas thrive in fairly dry or damp soil, in dense or partial shade or full sun. In a sunny position the plant will require a moist soil. In deep shade fewer flowers will be produced although under these conditions foliage tends to be larger.

What I simply love about Hostas is the surface tension of the leaves, which causes rain water to shatter and dance just, like a million globules of mercury across the corrugated leaf veins.

Hostas make superb container plants, and this is a great way of rising above the slug and snail dilemma. A few varieties such as ‘Big Daddy’ and ‘Halcyon’ are slightly less successful in pots. A real stunner in the lime green large leaved variety ‘Sum and Substance’. A good quality peat based container/basket compost should be used and I always add some horticultural grit as ballast in order to prevent the containers toppling over. About 15% by volume grit to compost is sufficient.

Hostas in pots should be watered regularly, the interval depending on the weather conditions.

If slugs are a problem in your garden choose varieties which have a more erect habit or thicker leaves such as ‘Big Daddy’, ‘Blue Angel’, ‘Frances Williams’, ‘Green Sheen’, ‘June’, ‘Krossa Regal’ and ‘Sum and Substance’. For the rock garden why not try some of the very small varieties such as Hosta venusta and Hosta ‘Little Aurora’.

Good garden practice will reduce slug populations and choose open situations in preference to continuously damp or shaded places. Avoid planting by walls, fences or stony ground where slugs shelter and hide, and always remember to remove old dead leaves from under and around the plants.

My favourite varieties include ‘Frances Williams’, ‘Sum and Substance’, and ‘June’ the latter has a superb gold leaf with a deep blue margin.