Hosta/woodland Garden....and yes I love talking about my garden

I have been moving around the hostas this last week. Also had to give away one large Blue Vision hosta. The plants are finally reaching their full size or spreading so I am trying to figure out a better arrangement for many spaces.

Their is ground cover for the winter months under the hostas with the primroses, ferns, BC ginger and hellebores. Spring the fern leaf bleeding hearts and old fashion ones fill in spaces. Now with summer I am trying to space out and fillin the hostas while still maintaining the other plants.

Here are some of my successes and dilemmas.

Beautiful hosta, but has totally made some smaller summer calla lilies invisible. Oh well. The deer fern, fern leaf bleeding hearts and hellebores do well protected until winter.


A pretty much perfect bed 2 tiered bed with hellebores and hosta on the bottom and native ferns on the top bed



Love this combo with hosta lambs ears and a path between the perrenial. The bees love all the hosta flowers as well as the lambs ears (sorry few or no Latin names today)


A combo still working but am loosing a path out of the storage area. Will need to prune the japonica piera this summer but with it and the bugula the area looks good during the winter. I didn't water until this last week and the fir trees over head made for the driest soil I have ever had in this area. We haven't had as much rain as usual. A few leaves on the hostas were dying back.




Here are just a few other of the hostas I really appreciate in color, form and placement.


This is a pic of a bed I am still developing. I just moved from another area the little Bountiful hosta. It is my only mini hosta in the garden and not in a pot. I have three clumps and am hoping it will continue to multiple as rapidly as it has so far. It is next to a medium sized Queen?


These two blue hostas vary a lot in size and I love that especially with the lambs ears. The bees are as crazy about the comb as I am especially since the flowering is staggered here. The hellebores and hart tongue ferns peeking out are the winter interest in this bed.


This June hosta sits on the slightest of rises (my yard slopes) but still is significantly larger than the other two I got at the same time. (Oops there is a foxglove that needs to be pulled)


Pretty well works with blooms starting with primroses, then columbines, followed with hosta blooms and finally the fall anenomes. (The orange blooming lilies need to be moved) Off on the left is the hydrangea in the next photo.



I love this variegated leafed hydrangea. After a cruel pruning and move year before last it is finally in a location it really likes. I have hopefully given it enough space to get as big as it wants.


I have the north bed of this area that is still in need of much work. It gets more sun but not full sun. It is still an experiment in action. I have begun moving some orphaned hostas into that area. Will leave those pics for another year.

 

Wow! You have some really pretty combinations going on! I love all the different hosta's and the Hydrangea is gorgeous. Your mix of different leaf colors is great

 

Wow oh wow oh wow!!! What a beautiful yard you have I love the hostas and the natural look you created!

 

Beautiful collection of Hosta Jewell, and some nice combinations. One of the reasons I love Hosta's is because of it's drought tolerance once established. We had only one small rain in the entire month of June, and my Hosta's still look great!

 

Lovely selection of Hostas and other plants looking/working well with them.

 

Thanks Stratsmom and Syn. Most of this area has been a real success. I used cardboard in multiple layers and there hasn't been a weed problem.

Netty it is good to know how drought resistant hostas are. I lost a couple of potted plants due to lack of water, but only one of the hostas had a little dried leaf.

 

Eileen, I know the trouble slugs can cause. We used to have hundreds of 6 inchers, guess that is about 12 cm. I started using cedar bark on the paths and around plants with slugs. Now we don't have any more slugs or very few. Too bad the cedar bark was so hard to find this spring. It has certainly changed the slug problem, making them almost extinct in my yard. I still see them crossing the road during rainy days.

 

Jewell,..beautiful garden and awesome collection of Hostas,..love those Lambs Ears they set each other off very well,..i have never come across a variegated leafed hydrangea over here,..pretty!,..now i will be looking out for one,..Snails and Slugs were under control here,..Hedgehog eats the Slugs however the Snails are always a battle,..loved looking at your garden

 

Can recall those days when household hot water/heating boilers here were mostly coal fired and always each day the sharp edged "clinker" and ashes was removed. This broken up and layered round the Hostas was the best deterrent I ever found - they did not like moving over that. Now I do put shingle on Hosta container tops - does help a little I think - perhaps something roughish round those in the border might help ?..

 

Gorgeous garden and I love your hostas! I've started a bunch and have about 5 varieties (no minis - yet). I started all of mine in large pots and have them out front adding colour and softening to the house. None of them are really big yet so the pots are looking kinda skimpy but hopefully next year all will look better.

Quite like your combinations too. Beautiful garden and some great ideas for me to aspire to

 

Hi Islandlife. Have been growing Hostas in pots/containers for many years and always with excellent results. Seen to their regular watering and a feed now and then and all has been well.
Slug & Snail control better also - can be more easily searched for and "hand picked". Have found If pots have a rolled over top edge/rim the smaller ones like to hide under them. Going out in the dark with a torch to find them is something else I do..
I also like to have other contrasting perennial foliage plants in pots and make up groups of four or five different - swop them around now and then for different arrangements.

 

@Sydney Smith I have six large pots of Hostas that I started last year and this year 4 of them have come out beautifully. Couldn't look nicer.

One pot has huge large leafed variety and what is happening is that the leaves are so large they're now just arbitrarily breaking over taking away from the entire look of the pot. Am seriously thinking this fall I will turn that pot out and plant the hosta in the garden.

The other pot has solid green leaf hostas that threw out about 6 leaves none of which ever developed a center. Just looks sparse. I've been debating if I'm going to leave this pot for next year and/or if I'm going to transplant into the garden.

Last summer here on Vancouver Island we had record drought. Not a drop of rain from February through 'til fall. The local WalMart store (because of watering restrictions and extreme heat) sold off all of their plants for a song. This prompted me to buy the hostas (and I WAS watering them last year with bathtub water) but most were not labelled and I didn't know really what I was getting.

This hosta was one of the winners that just grew beautifully




In this photo the big leafed hosta that is breaking over is the one directly in front of the door post. The other hosta that grew real skimpy is in a red clay pot in the middle of 3 under the garage window.



Re: Slugs and Snails - The entire front of my house is either concrete patio or blue chip gravel. They'd have to travel an awfully long ways to get to the hostas. I do patrol regularly but so far haven't seen any. They'll be dispatched immediately IF I do find one

 

Hi islandlife. Have looked at your potted Hostas and they look very nice indeed I think. My thoughts the pots could do with being bigger especially for the larger foliaged ones. Mine are in pots twice the size and they are all outdoors round the pond - perhaps as you said plant your "bigguns" out in the garden and select medium/smaller foliaged ones to replace them. Move at the correct time and they are very willing "movers" I have found. Does it matter if the foliage spills over and hides the pots??.
Its a shame about your water situation and I have been in the same plight myself in drought times here - I do have nine large water butts (in tandems of 4 & 2 + 3 singles) collecting rain from all roof areas.
Have fun and best wishes. Syd.

 

@Syd - Thanks for the advice re: bigger pots. I can tell that some of the hostas are doing well in the size pots I've got them in but the one big leaf is breaking over as there is more TOP to the container than the bottom. When WalMart (one of those mega super store type places) put all their plants on sale I was in seventh heaven buying and didn't really have a clue WHAT I was buying (other than hostas).

Will have to start looking for bigger pots