Shade Loving Hosta Plants

While they do produce a bounty of white and blue flowers throughout the summer months, Hosta Plants are utilized in the border primarily for their colorful and textured foliage display.

There are hundreds of cultivars that range from dwarf varieties to giants up to 4' high and 5' in diameter.

Hosta Plants can be planted nearly everywhere, but they will absolutely thrive in the shade garden. Although there are many special colors available, several are such a bright green that they nearly glow in the shade.

Hosta are some of the easiest plants in the garden to propagate. You can pop them out of the ground nearly any time of the year, cut them into chunks and plant them immediately.

What I do to split the clump is to take an old gypsum board saw, or a sharp square ended shovel and slice through the clump. After you dig the planting holes, mix in a couple handfuls of bone meal and keep the plantlet crowns above the surrounding soil line.

Allowing your Hosta flowers go to seed is an alternative way to add to your Hosta population. This way, buy the next growing season you will have all kinds of baby Hosta sprouting around the parent plant. You should let them grow through the next growing season to profit from a bit of size, and then can transplant them at the end of the summer.

Being decedents of wetlands plants, Hosta 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 need your Hosta garden and Deer population to co-exist, you will have to treat your plants with an 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.

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 lawn edges, 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 lot more that it receives in care and maintenance, and you will reap many rewards from having it in your garden.

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.