Gardening 101: Hostas

Hosta, Hosta: “Plantain Lily”

My introduction to hostas came when I was the new owner of a 1920s brick row house in Queens, New York. Spring arrived and the tiny shade garden in front of the house revealed its past. The shrubs I thought were surely dead turned out to be two scrawny (but living) spirea bushes. Scraggly tulips and one or two daffodils showed up. And at the edge of the little plot was a row of plants as tightly packed as the mat of tangled wires in the cable box in my backyard. As they gradually unfurled to reveal nondescript, narrow dark green leaves, research revealed them to be Hosta lancifolia, described by one source as “somewhat plain in appearance, but reliable and hardy.”

Hostas have a reputation for being the workhorses of a shade garden. More recently I have come to appreciate them also as gorgeous specimen plants and components of richly textured woodland landscapes. As the American Hosta Society can tell you, there are more than 8,000 cultivars that you can find growing in cheerful clumps under trees and shrubs. They hide ugly bare spots with their sturdy, waxy foliage and in summer send up stiff spikes topped with tiny bell-shaped purple or white flowers.

Are hostas the right plant for your shade garden? Read on to see how hostas, with a minimum of attention and care, can solve a host of gardening dilemmas while providing style, interest, and even fragrance.

It seems that designers have moved far away from the plain and reliable members of the Hosta species and progressed with relish to the literally thousands of cultivars which provide a virtually limitless variety of colors, sizes, and forms.

Clumps of hostas need to be divided every few years. I discovered that during that first spring season in my garden in Queens. As the Hosta lancifolia leafed out, the plants formed clumps with bald spots in the center. It turned out they were suffering from a condition known as center clump die-back (who knew?) caused by overcrowding. To cure the condition, I had to dig up the plants, pull them apart, and replant the separated sections.

Dividing sounds like a simple procedure. But my hostas had probably never been divided and were basically welded together. After I finally pried them out of the soil (with an antique iron pitchfork, a crowbar, and a lot of sweat), they refused to be disentangled with either fingers, screwdrivers, steak knives, or any other recommended stick-like tool. After much trial and error, a vigorously applied hacksaw produced the desired results. Once reinstalled in roomier quarters, the hostas thrived and even produced some modestly attractive lavender flowers in the summer. As you can tell from that story, hostas can take a lot of abuse without complaint.

Cheat Sheet

• Hostas are perfect companions for other shade plants such as astilbes, ferns, trout lily, and Solomon’s seal. With so many foliage colors and leaf forms, varieties of hosta also can easily be combined with each other to make an eye-catching mosaic of textures.
• Hostas are late to leaf out in the spring, which makes them perfect companions for spring bulbs. The bulbs bloom before the hostas appear; by the time the bulbs finish, the hostas unfurl to cover the unsightly dying bulb foliage.
• While hostas are known as shade lovers, those with lighter colored or variegated leaves do well with some exposure to sunlight (morning sun is best because harsh afternoon sun can cause leaf scorch). Blue and dark green varieties prefer deeper shade.
• Hostas are primarily thought of as foliage plants but some varieties produce summer flowers that are quite beautiful and often fragrant. Some gardeners prefer to prune away the flowers for aesthetic reasons (the blooms often fade quickly and can be untidy) or because they believe removing them helps to keep the plant more vigorous.

Keep It Alive

• Site hostas out of direct hot sun in USDA growing zones 3 to 8.
• Hostas are tolerant of most soils but prefer slightly acidic, rich, moist, well-drained soil.
• Water your hostas regularly (preferably early in the day) to prevent leaf tips and edges from scorching or turning brown.
• A layer of mulch added in the spring will help to keep your hostas from drying out.
• Hostas are readily propagated by division, which is most easily done in early spring before leaves have fully appeared.

Another lesson my first hostas taught me was that while these plants are generally quite easy to grow, they can be subject to a few vexing problems. Deer love them. That wasn’t a problem for me in Queens, of course, but the fact that they are also a favorite target of snails and slugs was definitely a concern. Snails and slugs and hostas all love moist, shady habitats where the gastropods are quite fond of munching away on hosta leaves and leaving slimy trails and tattered foliage in their wake.

There are endless theories and remedies for dealing with these slippery pests: Diatomaceous earth, copper mats, nematodes, garlic sprays, and keeping chickens or amphibians are recommended deterrents.

There are popular commercial products, such as Sluggo Snail and Slug Bait (a 25-pound bag is $69.99 from Grow Organic) and Escar-go Slug and Snail Control (a 5.5-pound bag is $44.99 at Gardens Alive).

An age-old DIY method is to bury small containers (cat food cans work very well) up to their rims in soil and then fill them with beer. Slugs apparently find the beverage irresistible and will slime their way into the cans for a taste. Sadly for them, they are not great swimmers and usually drown. I have used this method and it works very well… too well, actually. Eventually, I got tired of having to dispose of cat food cans full of stale beer and slug carcasses.

Read more growing and care tips in Hostas: A Field Guide to Planting, Care & Design in our curated guides to Perennials 101. See more of our favorite shade garden layouts:

• 10 Shade Garden Ideas to Steal from an English Woodland
• Beth Chatto’s Garden: Shade-Loving Plants for Year-Round Interest
• Native Perennials for a Shade Garden: 9 Favorites for Cold Climates