Thanks for the advice, Ken. I will check out those sellers. It would be nice to cut 2-4 years off the waiting time, but then again it would be kind of neat to watch a tiny baby hosta develope into a huge adult hosta, even if it takes 10 years. It would be kind of like watching your children grow up, IMO. Perhaps, next year I can get some more mature hostas to plant. I have a nice sun dappled spot on the north side of my garage where I could put a few hostas. Of course I would have to get rid of my three compost bins in order to make room.(Now I'm beginning to wonder if I could survive without the homemade compost. More hostas or homemade compost, hmmm...) My garden budget is already maxed out this year, lol. I purchased Wine & Roses Weigelas and Sunjoy Pillar Barberries for my wife for Valentine's day to plant along the south side of our house. I would plant hostas over there, but I think the full SC Kansas summer sun would roast them. Anyway, I appreciate all of the advice and suggestions. I hope to post some pics of my hostas this summer.

Top pic is hvx, second looks like lack of water. But im new as well and could be very wrong. I know that is not helpful, but you are posting in the right spot. The hosta lovers on here are great, informative and knowledgeable people. I bought a few from walmart, lowes, the depot and kmart. Then looked them up and realized just how many are available. Not sure when or how it happened, but at some point decided to start a collection and base my entire landscaping on hostas. After learning about HVX and finding it on ALL the hostas I purchased from kmart and homedepot, went out and seperated my hostas. Got rid of the sick ones and placed the others in a seperate bed where they will be for a few years. Not all hostas from big box stores have it, and not all local nurseries are clean. Would seperate what you have from what you are getting, but that is just me. Will probably get many different opinions on here.

Hello everyone, I am from new mexico, zone 7a. I have been using the site for reference for quite a while now and finally decided to make an account. I am an avid seed collector (and grower of course) and was quite excited to find this forum. This newbie board is a great idea and I will definitely be contributing to it in the future :D At the moment I am living in an apartment so I am doing container gardening mostly, flowers and herbs atm, also trying a passion flower vine and a few silk trees. I am interested in succulents, cacti, and really I am open to try anything new. I really want to start growing most of my own food within the next couple years so veggies of all kinds would be greatly appreciated. I have more than one property I am growing at, so I am in no way limited on the types of plants I can grow. Thank you for the help and I look forward to our future exchanges :D -Gabe

The answer to the title of your post is obvious. We're always delighted to get someone else hooked on hosta. We always need fresh faces. You're right about the water thing. The hosta must have water regularly. You cannot spot water in the ground, because it just attracts the tree roots to that area and they compete with your hosta for water and nutrients. I think whomever gave you the mulch advice was from another part of the country. The only problem I can think of is that it can provide a perfect environment for the slugs, which are a problem for most hosta. Here, it helps cool the soil and preserve moisture. We definitely need help with both of those. It's recommended by almost everyone, including the organic folks. There is some validity to the "wasting away" of hosta that may not be related to the water issue. Below is a h. Victory in August, 2011. Then there is the same hosta in 2014. This is at the Dallas Arboretum. (notice the mulch) 2011 below 2014 below All of the hosta were not that way, though. Some were really a lot bigger. Besides "wasting away", there could be many other problems. We lost our director of horticulture and trial gardens to The Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney, Australia a couple of years ago. He loved hosta. I'm not sure our current director of trials is all that enamored with hosta. So, the sprinklers could be broken or something like that. There are hosta that do better than others in our climate. There are hosta that are more sensitive to our alkaline soil (black or white dirt, red or tan is usually acid) and water than others. I have a August Moon that turned to the ugliest shade of green you've ever seen in one season. I have hosta I've had for years that never show any signs of chlorosis. So a big part is choosing the right hosta. I have a list that came from the Arboretum a few years ago. Let me know you're interested and I'll send it to you. Many of us grow hosta in pots. If that interests you, let us know. They make great patio pots. They come back every year and look great until August, when they start downhill. I'm not familiar with black oak. You can plant under Red Oaks without any problem. Pin Oaks do not like their roots messed with AT ALL. They will go belly up in a hurry if you mess with raising the soil. A good group to ask is your county extension service. You say Dallas area, so you could be in any county. Dallas Master gardeners are at 214.904.3053 from 8:30 to 4:30 Monday thru Friday. One of my favorite photos is below. It's not my hosta or my photo, but it's one of my favorites, anyway. It's tepelus' photo and plant. Let us if we can enable you further. bk This post was edited by bkay2000 on Sun, Jan 18, 15 at 20:19