Looking for a hardy perennial to use as a ground cover in a shady area of your yard? Hostas are one of the best plants for shade gardens or for under tall trees. Where grass and other ground covers struggle, hostas thrive adding lush greenery and becoming more beautiful every year. They love the afternoon shade and the moist soil these areas usually have. Hostas can transform brown and barren into green and abundant for you.
Offering an incredible array of sizes, colors including variegated, and shapes including crinkled edges, hostas come in numerous varieties. Most garden centers have a nice selection at reasonable prices to let the ordinary everyday gardener share in the diversity these shady plants offer. For the expert, there are varieties too that are more rare and more expensive.
The calming hues of yellow, gold, white, green, and blue, will give your garden an air of regal serenity. Their bold, shapely leaves mix in well with other shade-tolerant perennials, azaleas, for instance, make a beautiful combination. Juxtapose them with textural ferns, or with contrasting color like spotted geraniums along with the chartreuse of ‘Sum and Substance’, or blend yellow daylilies with the size of the tall ‘Blue Angel’. Mass hosta plantings can make a strong, stunning statement. You can choose to have just one variety or include a range with varying leaf sizes, colors, and shapes.
Providing a strong visual effect with variegated leaves, hostas in the Tiara series are a particularly good choice for borders. These hostas also make good ground covers because they spread quickly and are easily divided. A short-stature hosta such as ‘Golden Tiara’ is an excellent choice for edging hosta beds to lend a formal flair with its color.
Because hostas are so easy to grow and can spruce up a garden in no time, they are a hardy favorite of many gardeners. They are fun to grow too because of the many varieties that can be mixed up and placed within what you already are growing. Though hostas are known to do best in shade, many hostas benefit from partly shaded areas with even a few hours of soft morning sun.
You can plant hostas in the spring or fall, in well-drained soil. It is preferred to plant in soil that’s slightly acidic and rich in organic matter. Add quality compost or composted manure to the soil when planting and then a top layer of mulch will help keep the soil moist which hostas like.
They generally need minimal care, except for leaf-chewing slugs and snails, few pests plague hostas. Some gardeners put up with leaf damage, but available at most garden centers are effective slug barriers. However, deer do like to chomp off the leaves at the stem in early spring just when they are starting to rise up from the ground, so beware.
Fortunately, hostas are easy to divide, so you can quickly add new varieties to your garden. They make wonderful gifts to other hosta-loving gardeners. Trade and multiply to have great results.
