My Garden of Hostas
It's always so exciting to see how the gardens develop and thrive around my farm.
In 2020, we planted hundreds of hosta plants down behind my chicken coop yard across the carriage road from my allée of lilac. I first got the plants as bare-root cuttings and kept them in a cold frame for several months until they were big enough to transplant. In all, we had more than 700 hostas in a variety of cultivars including 'Wide Brim,' 'Francee,' 'Regal Splendor,' 'Elegans,' and 'Blue Angel.' Now four years later, they're doing excellently, filling the space with verdant foliage under the dappled shade of the stately dawn redwoods.
Here are some photos.
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- I tour all the gardens on a daily basis. I check how much the plants have grown, how healthy they are, and whether they need more food or water. I also assess what areas need more filling, or if plants need moving. Right now, so many of the gardens are just brimming with color and vitality – in particular, my hosta garden.
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- Just three weeks ago this garden was pretty bare. I instructed my outdoor grounds crew to top dress the bed with a generous layer of mulch, but there wasn’t much to see except the bit of green from the growing plants.
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- A week later, the hostas were up, some opened, and others were just beginning to unfurl.
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- And this is the garden now – hundreds of bold, green, gorgeous hosta plants are thriving.
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- This garden is planted under the shade of tall dawn redwoods, Metasequoia. In this photo, one can also see the allée of lilace across the carriage road.
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- The area is also planted with viburnum, cotinus, Spanish bluebells, and bleeding hearts, Dicentra.
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- It’s hard to miss these beautiful flowers. Dicentra is an elegant, easy-to-care-for perennial for shady gardens. More commonly known as bleeding heart, it is named for its heart-shaped blossoms that dangle from slender, arching stems. Dicentra is a great companion for other shade loving perennials such as hosta, astilbe and ferns. Here it is in pink.
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- … And here it is in red.
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- Viburnums have long been one of the most popular flowering landscape shrubs. This large group of plants consists of more than 150 species and numerous named cultivars. Viburnums include deciduous and evergreen specimens as well as small trees, mostly native to North America or to Asia. The leaves of viburnum ranges from glossy green to a dull, dark green, velvet appearance to foliage that is thick and leathery.
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- Hyacinthoides hispanica, commonly called Spanish bluebell or wood hyacinth, is a bulbous perennial native to Spain, Portugal and northwest Africa. Each bulb produces a clump of two to six strap-shaped leaves from which a rigid flower stem grows, typically containing up to 12 to 15 hanging, bell-shaped, bluish-lavender flowers that rise from the center.
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- I planted lots of these Spanish bluebells around the farm.
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- Another favorite is Continus – a few are also planted in this space. The smooth, rounded leaves come in exceptional shades of clear pinkish-bronze, yellow, deep purple, and green.
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- Hosta is a genus of plants commonly known as hostas, plantain lilies, and occasionally by the Japanese name, giboshi.
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- Hostas are native to northeast Asia and include hundreds of different cultivars.
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- These beautiful plants have been opening more and more every day, showing off their gorgeous leaf structures.
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- Hosta leaf textures can be smooth, veined or puckered. Their surfaces may be matt, shiny or waxy but are usually satiny.
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- This variety is called ‘Francee’ with dark green, heart-shaped leaves and narrow, white margins.
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- ‘Regal Splendor’ is a large hosta featuring thick, wavy-undulate, blue-gray leaves with irregular creamy white to pale yellow margins and cuspidate tips.
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- ‘Elegans’ has huge, rounded, blue-gray leaves with white flowers that bloom mid-summer.
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- This is ‘Wide Brim’ with its dark green leaves and wide, yellow, irregular margins. This variety prefers full shade for most of the day.
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- The hostas were strategically positioned and spaced, paying attention to variety, color, and growth habit.
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- Unlike many perennials, which must be lifted and divided every few years, hostas are happy to grow in place without much interference. In summer, blooms on long stalks extend up above the clumping hosta foliage.
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- Hostas thrive in sites where filtered or dappled shade is available for much of the day, but they can survive in deep shade. If you have a shady area, experiment with shade-loving plants. Hostas, with their palette of different colors, textures, and sizes have tremendous landscape value and offer great interest to any garden. I am so pleased with how well this garden is doing.
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