The Bridgewood
Gardens Hosta Book

Chapter

Planning Your Hosta Garden

 
 
Growing Hostas
Why We Grow Hostas
Where Hostas Grow
Growing in the South
Planning Hosta Gardens
Watering
Fertilizing
Dividing
Fall Planting
Winter Losses
Hostas in Containers
Problems
 

Choosing Hostas
How Big Will They Get
Hostas for Sunny Areas
Green Hostas
Gold Hostas
Blue Hostas
White-Centered Hostas
Tetraploid Hostas
Fragrant Hostas
Streaked Hostas
Hosta Flowers

Plantain Lily and the Great Slug Bait Episode
A cautionary tale about using slug bait and other chemicals in the garden

The Big Move
In 2003 we moved our nursery from Maryland to Virginia. If you would like to see the story, click here.  It seems funnier now than it did at the time.












 


























 

 

 

...is, in my opinion, a total waste of time.  Maybe garden plans are great if you're planting a perennial garden. And I'd certainly hate to try to plant one of those fancy herb gardens without drawing it all out on paper.  The kind with all the little trimmed hedges that criss-cross each other back and forth...  Nobody really does that anyway.

Hosta gardens are different.  A real hosta garden can't be planned.  A real hosta gardener always finds new plants every spring. And they're not in the plan.  There's always something new you can't do without, or something you've been wanting for years that you finally found at a reasonable price. Oops, five new plants and no room in the plan. The plants just keep getting bigger and bigger and you have to move them to make room, and then someone comes along and talks you into dividing one cause they're too cheap to buy their own, and now you have a small plant in a big space. Planning supposes that at some time, everything will reach a cosmic equilibrium. Hosta gardens just don't do that.  If you try to plan something like this, you will go insane.  I've seen it happen!

The best way to design a hosta garden is to buy every hosta that you like, find some empty space in your garden, and start digging. The only comments I had for  this garden was that there was still a lot of room for miniatures in the front, and of course I wondered what all that grass was for.

When you think you've run out of room, take a look at some of those old plants you picked up when you first started.  Maybe it's time to dig up some of those old timers and give them away so you can replace them with some expensive new introductions.  And of course, if you have any other perennials or shrubs in your garden, you can always get rid of that stuff.

And after you plant them, stand back and look at them for a while and if they don't look just right, move them.  That's what real hosta gardeners do.