I’m more and more impressed with Hosta ‘Miss America’ each year. Not only is this white-centered hosta amazingly vigorous, but it has one of the finest floral shows we’ve ever seen on a hosta. The steel rod-like upright flower stalks on our plant have reached 4′ tall, but as the plant grows larger, they will eventually top 6′ in height. Not wind, rain, or post office vehicle can knock down these super sturdy stalks, and the great show they provide for weeks. Our plant is 100′ from our back porch, and it shows up like a floral beacon even from that distance.
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.
One of our favorite new hostas is Hosta ‘Pocketful of Sunshine’. The longer we grow it, the better we like it…here’s a new photo. It originated as a sport, originally from Hosta ‘Maui Buttercups’. Hosta ‘Pocketful of Sunshine’ has very thick, corrugated leaves, with a dramatic gold and dark green pattern on a small-medium sized clump.
I’ve got hostas on the brain today, since in a few hours, we’ll soon be hosting 420 hosta friends for an intimate dinner, as part of the 2015 American Hosta Society National Convention.
I’m also just back from a road trip to Walters Gardens in Michigan to visit one of the top perennial plant breeders in the world, our friend Hans Hansen. While there, I snapped quite a few hosta photos, and here are some of my personal favorites.
Hosta ‘Happy Dayz‘ is a sport of the difficult to grow Hosta ‘Orange Marmalade’…a plant that grows fine in a pot, but sulks in the ground. This mutation has dramatically more vigor and makes a superb garden specimen.
Hosta ‘Key West’ is an enormous gold-leaf hosta with great vigor from our friend, Indiana hosta breeder, Olga Petryszyn.
Hosta ‘Bridal Falls’ is a stunning, ruffled leaf introduction from Holland’s Jan van den Top that I just adore.
Here’s one more or Olga’s best hosta creations, Hosta ‘Brother Stefan’, with superb seersuckered leaves. Hosta ‘Brother Stefan’ was recently voted the hosta of the year for 2017!
Here’s a fascinating hosta image just captured by staff member Jim Burgan, who noticed the light coming through the fern onto the hosta leaf…pretty cool.
