Hostas don’t grow here…

We often hear and read that hostas won’t grow well in the mid and deep south, so we thought we should share a few garden photos from this week at JLBG (Zone: 7b), to bust yet another garden myth.

Starting with some small/miniature hostas, the first is Doug Beilstein’s Hosta ‘Baby Booties’, a superbly vigorous dwarf that has really been exceptional.

Hosta ‘ Baby Booties’

Hosta ‘Blue Fingers’ is a PDN/JLBG introduction of one of the very few tiny blue-leaf hostas with excellent vigor and a good multiplication rate.

Hosta ‘Blue Fingers’

Hosta ‘Wriggles and Squiggles’ is an exceptionally wavy-leaf, small, gold introduction from plant breeder, Hans Hansen.

Hosta ‘Wiggles and Squiggles’

Hosta ‘Fire and Ice’ is another Hans Hansen introduction that was a reverse sport of Hosta ‘Patriot’. It fares much better when given more light, even a few hours of sun in the morning.

Hosta ‘Fire and Ice’

Hosta ‘Swamp Thing’ is a PDN/JLBG introduction with great vigor and glossy foliage

Hosta ‘Swamp Thing’

Hosta ‘Beyond Glory’ is a Hans Hansen sport from Hosta ‘Glory’. This is just one exceptional hosta, which also benefits from a bit of morning sun or very open shade.

Hosta ‘Beyond Glory’

Hosta ‘Diamond Lake’ is a stunning new Hans Hansen creation with large blue corrugated leaves with exceptional leaf rippling.

Hosta ‘Diamond Lake’

Hosta ‘Gold Meadows’ is one of our favorite sports of Hosta sieboldiana ‘Elegans’. When the weather warms, the central pattern fades to solid blue, but in spring, it’s absolutely stunning. It has also shown great vigor in the Southeastern US.

Hosta ‘Golden Meadows’

Hosta ‘One Last Dance’ is a Hans Hansen/Walters Gardens sport of Hosta ‘Dancing Queen’. We think it’s hard to beat this amazing plant. The vigor is evident in our photo.

Hosta ‘One Last Dance’

Boehmeria ‘Glow Light’

Boehmeria nipononivea Glow Light3

One of the most difficult parts of our job is to try and predict which plants will sell well.  We’d like to think that our favorites would also be your favorites, and in some cases that’s true.  In others, like Boehmeria ‘Glow Light’, it wasn’t true.  We just took this photo of one of our favorite woodland perennials that’s unrivaled for brightening a shade garden all summer long.  It’s easy to grow and hardy from zones 6a-9b.  So, help us out…why didn’t enough folks buy this amazing plant to keep it in production?