Click below to listen to my 2 min. Garden Bite radio show: Hostas are bad A&s
Hostas are backbone of nearly every shade garden, and for good reason! We can count on this plant no matter what!
There are big ones, little ones, large leafed, wrinkled leaf and so many varying shades of green and cream and even blue, that it will make your head spin! Get this, there are 6,100 registered cultivars or varieties according to the American Hosta Society with many more likely to exist that are not registered.
The University of Minnesota explains where those stripes come from in some hosta.
Many are chimeras….with different cells growing side by side and this accounts for the variegated or striped, patterned foliage. Propagating or slicing hosta crowns often reveals new cells with new color patterns and so we see a lot of variation in hostas. Coolio!
As for slugs and deer, Nursery owner and designer, Steve Kelly, says they prefer soft, easy to chew foliage, those hosta (lancifolia) that commonly line driveways.
If you have issues with these pests, Kelley suggests planting hostas with thick, tough leaves.
Blue cultivars are also less tasty! Check out the NUMEROUS new hostas of all sizes nhhostas.com
‘Krossa Regal’ is large and in charge.
‘Regal Splendor’ has thick leaves and is quite lovely!
‘First Frost’ is also slug resistant. ‘Golden Tiara’ is a Minnesota cultivar that’s another option.
This was a 2019 intro… ‘Holar purple flash’
