Here are the lists I promised. This is from the Smith County (Smith County and is about 90 mi. east if Dallas) Extention service trials about 10 years ago. Smith county is in East Texas and is not as dry as the DFW area, but just as hot. I think it's 7b. Everything shifts when I post this. It's copied from a PDF, but you will be able to see the results, but it won't stay in columns. The hosta were evaluated by master gardeners in June, August, October and then averaged. There was a problem with the irrigation system in an area so �So Sweet�, �Sugar & Cream�, �Royal Standard�, and �Albo-Marginata� didn't get sufficient water. NAME DATE AVERAGE June August October Blue Angel 9.8 8.8 10 9.5 Sugar & Cream 9.2 9.4 9 9.2 Blue Cadet 8.7 8.8 10 9.2 Francee 6.0 8.8 10 8.3 Gold Standard 6.3 7.6 10 8.0 Honeybells 7.1 8.8 8 8.0 So Sweet 9.4 5.6 8.5 7.8 Royal Standard 7.4 9 7 7.8 Lancifolia 7.3 7.8 8 7.7 Grand Tiara 7.8 7.2 7 7.3 Albo-Marginata 7.6 5.8 7 6.8 September Sun 6.2 7 7 6.7 Sun Power 6.8 6.8 6 6.5 Elegans 6.0 7.4 6 6.5 Emerald Tiara 7.8 7.2 4 6.3 Patriot 4.6 6.2 7 5.9 Bold Ribbon 6.5 6.8 3 5.4 Guacamole 6.7 5.4 4 5.4 Gold Edger 7.1 6 3 5.4 Fragrant Bouquet 5.1 4.8 6 5.3 Sagae 5.2 4.6 6 5.3 Shade Fanfare 5.5 4.6 3 4.4 Summer Music 3.8 2.8 6 4.2 Undulata 6.3 3 3 4.1 Temple Bells 6.1 3.2 3 4.1 Krossa Regal 4.2 3.8 4 4.0 Resonance 4.3 5.2 2 3.8 H. fortunei 'Aureo Marginata' 4.3 3 2 3.1 Aphrodite 3.5 2.4 3 3.0 Colossal 4.3 2.6 2 3.0 Fried Green Tomatoes 3.8 3.4 1 2.7 Invincible 4.5 2.6 1 2.7 Halcyon 2.8 2.8 2 2.5 Big Daddy 2.3 2.8 1 2.0 Daybreak 1.7 2.4 2 2.0 Sum & Substance 2.1 1.8 2 2.0 Hadspen Heron 1.5 1 1 1.2 *Master Gardeners were asked to rank each variety from 1 to 10, with 1 = worst/almost dead, and 10 = outstanding in every way. These are the recommended varieties from a trial at the Dallas Arboretum. There is also a large trial in progress right now. I can hardly wait to see how they look this spring. Invincible (plantaginea Hybrid) Sugar & Cream (Honeybell sport) Dixie Chick (Invincible x Masquerade) Abba Ready Sweet Standard (Honeybell sport) Emily Dickinson (plantaginea hybrid) Potomac Pride (H. 'Blue Umbrellas' x H. yingeri 'Treasure Island' cross) Plantaginea Honeybells Royal Standard Regal Splendor (Krossa Regal sport) Krossa Regal Francee So Sweet (Green with cream edge- compact) Blue Cadet (Blue green medium) Patriot September Sun (Chartreuse green/yellow with dark green edge) The going theory is that certain "families" of hosta do better in warmer areas, which makes sense. If the parent plants are from warmer climates, then you would think that the progeny would do better in warm climates. It was explained to me that some varieties pass on their heat tolerance better than others. Sill, I don't think you can go wrong with anything fragrant, which comes from plantaginea. This is a recommended list: The families of hostas that do well in southern gardens are: clausa gracillima kikutii longpipes montana Nakaiana plantaginea rupifraga sieboldii some species tibae ventricosa venusta yingeri nakaiana How I tell the parentage is to look it up on the Hosta library http://www.hostalibrary.org/. Then say you are interested in what "so sweet" looks like. Look in the S's on the hosta library. On the left above the first photos is a link to the the myhosta.net database. It will usually tell you how large the plant will be and what the parents are. Sometimes, they are many generations removed and this is no longer relevent, though. Good Luck, I'm not sure when the trial at the Dallas Arboretum concludes. However, when it does, I'll post the results. bkay

HI Erin! Welcome to the wonderful fun of gardening and also, bless you in your new home! Where are you located? Are you thinking of only planting hostas or are you thinking of having a few other plants in there with them? Some contrast and especially color when the hostas are not blooming makes everything look really nice. Hostas are quite happy to have friends among them. My lot is .1 acre and that includes the house. So I do not not get hundreds of hostas or anything else (except slugs). It is pretty shady from my neighbors' trees though the bed in front of the house is in full sun. That is where daylilies and irises go. But I do have at least 25 cultivars of hostas and am planning some more. The advantage to a small garden is you have to plan what you put in it -- or else be prepared to pull out things to give away so you can make room for new acquisitions. And divisions from your older plants! The fun is, you don't get everything at once that you will ever have. Wait a while and put things in a few at a time (annuals will do to fill in places) and then you can have the pleasure of learning about new species and cultivars and acquiring them as the years go by. You will get different plants, hostas or otherwise, from various sources and they will always remind you of the person who gave it to you, swapped with you, or the trip you took when you bought one or another plant(s). I like to have some color spotted here & there so I use impatiens (I can hear the perennial people groaning) and I also have some Heron's Pirouette perennial begonias---these get about 2.5-3" tall when they bloom and have long lasting scapes ( flower stalks), arching gracefully --- here, from Aug till frost. In May, there is old fashioned bleeding heart -- both white and pink/white. These die back in the heat of summer so the hostas, which are getting big, fill in the bare spots the bleeding hearts left. I have a few liriope here & there because they are OK with dry shade & tree roots, and they are not boring if you only use a couple. You can get them with several shades of variegated foliage, and white or medium or dark blue flowers. And they bloom in very late summer/fall when not much else does, in the shady garden. I live in NJ overlooking the Delaware R just north of Trenton. I use astilbe, too--from white to pink to deep red frothy flowers in late spring and early summer. They are also beautiful with the hostas. Right now there are crocuses that have just opened yesterday (when it was sunny) and there will be squills and grape hyacinths, and daffodils are in the sunnier spots. I don't bother with tulips---though I love them, they are an expensive way to feed deer. I have lily of valley under the Norway spruce tree (which has had its lower branches removed to give sun to the bed under it) this is a rather dry shade bed---however the trunk of the spruce is ringed with Gold Standard hostas that are quite happy. The bed gets compost thrown over it every spring and it has sweet woodruff in there along with the hostas, and little spring bulbs such as crocuses & squills, and bigger ones ie English bluebells. Lily of the valley would like to take over the world, but there is easy way to stop it---dig some out. After it blooms, so you can have the wonderful flowers! I try to always have something blooming somewhere in the yard. It does not have to be a lot, just a bit--some white or pink flowered thing next to a dark leaved hosta brightens the corner. I have scilla Hispanica which is "wood hyacinths" -- you can get them in pink, white or blue, and they are very shade tolerant. They will bloom in May (here) and do very well next to hostas too. When the hosta leaves get bigger, the scilla is dying back for the summer. In our yard we have red shale which breaks down to clay in some parts, and what the locals call "the brown sand" in the other areas. In one little lot! Some kind of interesting geology was going on here a long time ago! We now have dark black soil over both, after years of digging in manure, leaves, & compost. You can ameliorate clay quite a lot with gypsum. We dig our yard's leaves right into our beds, around the plants, in fall. When we make a new bed, which we did a lot of after we got the new septic system, we take three years to do this digging, instead of planting things right away. The soil in those beds is wonderful. We also have a compost bin in the back corner---this is not rocket science and do not let compost hobbyists scare you! All you have to do is make a circle a yard or more across with sturdy wire, and throw in the leaves, weeds, and the non-meat kitchen scraps. Also grass clippings if you do not put weed killer and poisons on the lawn. Kitchen stuff meaning plant material such as peels, rinds, stems, leftover salad or other veggies that waited too long in the fridge to be eaten, and cut up toilet paper rollers. Turn it twice a year and when you turn it, take the well-composted stuff out & use it in your garden. When the ground is warm in summer, we just take the kitchen compost bowl out & dig the stuff right into the garden next to the plants. It breaks down very quickly in summer and the nutrition goes right into the plants. You said you have children---by all means, set aside a place for their own garden! Especially if you can make it in a sunny area. Let them plant veggies (then they will eat them) and make it easy ones such as lettuce and beans. You can grow beans as a little tent to save space. Or you can make a taller "tepee" with poles and leave an opening for the kids to crawl in under the beans. You can take a potato from the farmer's market (the organic stand; it won't have been sprayed with anti-sprouting stuff) and cut it up so the pieces have eyes. Just stick them in the ground a few feet apart. Then the kids can have their own potato plants. Well, you have heard enough from me! Once again, welcome to years & years of great fun!

Thanks, guys - that helps lots. Although you're all in Zone 4 which makes a huge difference. I don't know if you get the stupid heat waves like we do in Chicagoland. But I'll be planting this weekend and really appreciate your answers. Re Sunrise Nursery, Gayle - it's in Grant Park, Illinois and it's the hugest nursery I've ever seen. GW's 'hostared' (Gloria Lang) who lives a mile from Indiana told me about it and I went two years ago and last year went three time and this year I'm going at LEAST three times. But I asked Gloria to answer with directions and I'm sure she will....I forgot which post it was so I'll go back and tell her... Westy PS (I'm in Crystal Lake, IL which is a 1 1/2 hour drive to her house and then we go a little farther south to the nursery - and it's worth the half tank of gas!)

Hi Sharon, Just wanted to add another welcome to New England. My mom lived in Peabody until last year, and I used to live in Peabody, but that was another lifetime ago. It's a nice town. Now I live a little further south and west of you. You will get snow. My mom always used to get snow whenever we did, just a little less, because of your proximity to the coast. I grew up here, but I did buy the Northeast Gardening book by Sunset. I guess it's an ok book, I don't know why I bought it. A compulsion to buy books, I guess. :-) There is nothing like actual experience, and I have gardened and lived here all my life, so I can't really say if the info in there will be useful to someone from Calif. But just wanted to let you know that there is a Sunset gardening book for the Northeast, and it's a big thick book. Besides all the other stuff people have mentioned, I would recommend that you get a good book about New England wildflowers, if that interests you. (I have one, but unfortunately I can't put my hands on it right this second, so I can't tell you the title, but I'll keep looking for it) There are a lot of wildflowers and spring ephemerals that show up briefly in the spring along with the early bulbs that help make spring a joy after all the cold and snow. You don't want to pull one thinking it's a weed. Some ARE weeds, but others like bloodroot and jack-in-the-pulpit, are great to have. If I were you I would wait to order bulbs and see what you may already have in the spring. All the foliage from daffs and tulips and crocuses has died back, so like others have said, you may not know what else you have. Oh BTW, the fall foliage is a real treat. Just wait a few weeks. You don't have to go anywhere special to see it. Just drive or walk anywhere and you will see some gorgeous fall colors. Keep coming here to GW too, it will keep you sane in the winter. Alison