|
E
|
Green Hostas
Our list
of hostas changes frequently, so some of the varieties mentioned here may
not always be available. We realize it would be better if everything
was always up to date, but it doesn't work that way around here.
You can probably just skip over
this part quickly and move on, cause nobody gives a hoot about green hostas.
I can here you all now, "Oh, that's not true..." Well, I've been
selling hostas for 25 years and I know what you guys buy, and you don't buy
many green hostas. And that's too bad, because not only are there some great
green hostas out there, but you need green hostas in your garden.
The best garden is not the one
with the most flowers and the brightest colors. A hosta garden with
nothing but variegated plants is just too busy. It's like painting
each window frame on your house a different color. You need green
hostas as a foil to show off the variegated plants. To add some subtlety to
the garden. You need green hostas.
 The
green giants are not too hard to sell. Everyone likes the big hostas
and some of the largest are green. 'Big John', 'Colossal', 'Elatior',
and the other huge plants are always popular. Green hostas with
piecrust edges are semi-popular too, like 'Niagara Falls' at left, mostly
because there aren't too many variegated plants with true piecrust edges.
And lastly, Hosta plantaginea,
the August Lily, and 'Aphrodite', its double flowered sport, are fairly
popular because they have immense fragrant flowers, unlike those on any
other hosta. Unfortunately, we seldom list these because they are best grown
in warmer climates and we don't think they are the best choice for Northern
gardens. We have trouble growing them here because they come up too
early and almost always get damaged by a late frost. They also need a
long growing season to bloom and after all the trouble of growing them, we
seldom see the flowers. They are, however, a good choice for
growing in the South.
So maybe you do buy a few green
hostas. But how many of you grow 'Fall Bouquet'? 'Raspberry Sorbet'?
'Rippled Honey'? 'Snowden'? I thought so. They're all great plants and
you should grow them even though they're not variegated. Ventricosa is a
species hosta that's been around for a zillion years, it's absolutely
gorgeous and belongs in every hosta garden. Even some of the old green
standby's like 'Fortunei Obscura', 'Valentine Lace', the kikutii types,
'Pearl Lake' and others are excellent, inexpensive plants for filling
between and emphasizing the colors on variegated plants.
We would grow a lot more
interesting green hostas if you guys would only start buying them.
|
