Plantain Lilies - Hosta Plants

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Hosta Plants

Most gardeners love to have Hosta Plants in their borders for their colorful and deeply textured foliage, even though they do produce a bounty of white or blue flowers upon tall flower stalks all summer long.

Hundreds of cultivars are available from dwarfs to giant sized specimens that attain heights of 3 to 4', and a spread of 5' for even more.

Hosta Plants can be planted nearly everywhere but the will absolutely thrive in the shade garden. Various cultivars have bright green, almost a chartreuse appearance to them that seem to glow in the shade.

Propagation:

Hosta Plants are one of the easiest perennials to propagate. You can pop them out of the ground nearly any time of the year, cut them into chunks and plant them right away.

To split the clump, just take an old gypsum board saw, or a sharp square ended shovel, and easily slice through the clump. First dig the planting holes for the plantlets, mix in a couple handfuls of bone meal to each hole, and when planting, keep the crowns of each plant above the surrounding soil line.

Another, albeit slower way to add to your Hosta population is to let the flower heads go to seed. You will observe that by the next growing season, you will have a lot of baby 'volunteers' growing around the parent plant. Let them gain a little size and by the end of the season they should be large enough to transplant to their new home.

Hosta Plants - Growing Conditions

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Hosta Plants
Being decedents of wetlands plants, Hosta plants will enjoy having 'wet feet'. You will find that the wetter the plant is kept, the better it will grow. Hosta will love being planted next to streams, along pond edges, and in a bog setting. This versatile garden plant is also very much to home in rich garden soil.

There is one thing you should be aware of with the Hosta though. The Deer eat them like they are in a candy store! They will eat them until there is nothing left. So if you want your Hosta garden and Deer population to co-exist, you will have to treat your plants with a very effective Deer Repellent. I have found that Liquid Fence is the most effective Deer repellent on the market and I have tried everything in my Hosta gardens.

Hosta Plants - Plantain Lilies - Other Uses

If you have a lot of shade you can play with entire borders or 'seas' of Hosta Plants, playing all the shapes, colors, sizes and textures off each other.

Some additional prime locations for Hosta Plants are as long, meandering edges along lawns, as base plants beneath shade trees, where nothing else will grow, and as foundation plants around structural elements.

This perennial plant will give you a ton more that it receives in care and maintenance, and you will reap many rewards from having it in your garden.

Hosta Plants - Companion Plants:

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Zoysia Grass Invastion
Astilbe

There has always been a classic partnership in the shade garden of Hosta and Astilbe. The fine astilbe foliage and colorful flower plumes enhance a plantain lily bed all summer long.

Columbine

The colorful dancing flowering are an amazing contrast against the backdrop of equally interesting Hosta leaves, while both plants are very comfortable in the shade garden.

Christmas Fern

Although just about any fern looks outstanding in concert with a Hosta garden, the Christmas Fern with its upright fronds has unbelievable appeal.