ARTICLES
Introduction
Planting
Colour
Springtime
Tulips
Catalogues
Seeds
Books
Weeds
Articles - Colour
All the Baby Hostas
Globe & Mail,
August, 10, 2002
All the Baby Hostas
by Marjorie Harris
Hostas are the bane and the love of my gardening life. When I see one species massed all over a front garden and I think some devious nursery person has unloaded all their leftovers on hapless owners leaving them with a really boring, though maintenance-free, garden. Then I wish they'd go away. That's the bad part.
The good part is that hostas are among the most exciting plants currently available today. If you become a hosta collector, you are among a richly rewarded elite group. The rewards are obvious: You can join a society devoted to these plants; they require little care but give a huge amount of pleasure; they will grow in the shade; they'll put up with arduous conditions (though they do like to be watered) and still look wonderful. They have one major enemy: slugs. And it's a good bit of therapy to hit the garden early in the morning and stomp on as many of these slimy creatures as possible. Certainly gets you ready for the day. If you can't stand slugs, there are hostas with thick leaves or a waxy coating on the leaves which repel them. But as much as I like those forms, I'm on the prowl looking for what's new.
I went to Canadale Nurseries in St. Thomas, Ontario to do just this. Tom Intven is the proprietor there and he's always fascinating on the business of horticulture. I was amazed at the number of new hostas he has just waiting to grow up and get into the trade. A few years ago you could choose from several dozen, now there are at least five thousand available somewhere in the world. At Intven's nursery there are more than two hundred different, absolutely fascinating hostas. And, even more will be released next year and onwards.
Most of Intven's new hostas are created by tissue culture. This is an asexual form of propagation which manipulates plant tissue in a petri dish and agar solution. This is one step up from molecular biology. The genetic makeup of one plant is used to duplicate itself precisely over and over again. It's finicky and very much a hands-on proposition but will also produce perfectly cloned masterpieces.
Once the first little bit starts to produce shoots (some will fetch up as few as three, others 50), they are then moved on into a new agar solution and, for three to five months, live in tents with 100 per cent humidity. In less than a year there could be thousands of identical babies waiting to be potted on while they develop good root systems.
I asked Intven to show me ones that he thought fit my definition of the perfect hostas (won't get too big, have interesting new shapes and squiggles in its foliage or markings that make them special). I'm not a big fan of hosta flowers (though I do know bees like them) so I don't care if they are white, purple or the ubiquitous lilac. Most of the time I cut them off and stick them in a vase. It's the leaf that's the real draw here.
The variety of foliage I saw that day was amazing. Anyone who has a balcony or container garden with some shade will be thrilled given the size of these plants. As for the rest of us, it will mean moving out some of the big old plants to make way for the new little plants. The leaf colours are so subtle in their differences, so captivating in leaf shape and they have such a wide range of colours from the deepest green to gold more pure than I thought possible.
At the moment I have a dozen new ones in small 8 cm pots. Tom Intven has recommended that keeping them in their pots until the roots hit the walls so to speak. I have them displayed in a square metal container and keep shuffling them around to make new patterns. Next year when I can put them out in the garden, I'll have a whole bunch of new ways of using them. I can see a tapestry area of only hostas.
Winter storage won't be a problem even in pots this small. The important thing is to keep them away from the dreaded freeze-thaw by keeping them off the ground and the surfaces from being soaked. I've finally had shelves constructed in my garden shed. The pots should be just fine in there, since they'll be off the ground and they won't get snow or rain on them.
I've also earmarked some of the great big old ones to be ripped right out of the garden in spring. It's easy to divide them then and share them with friends. Then I'll have room for all the new ones. I hope to resist the temptation to plant them too close together and I'll keep my eye out for slugs. I am convinced these new hostas will change most people's minds about the hosta. Absolutely no one can ever again say they all look alike. What variety and what great forms. In fact they are so singular each one would also look fantastic in a container. And this has become one of my favourite ways to appreciate hostas: big and little. I've now got some in containers as edgers in the garden, right in the middle of a border, on the deck, front porch and I'm happy to make room for lots more. These are great plants.
Canadale Nursery, 519-631-7264; has a really good catalogue which can be purchased for $5 they don't ship but it's an excellent reference: 269 Sunset Drive, St. Thomas, Ont. N5R 3C4.
Copyright Marjorie Harris, 2005
CONTACT MARJORIE HARRIS
link to native plant nurseries & info Evergreen