geez... you either need more kids or more hosta if you have a recollection of the pips per plant from last year ... the third is is NOT always the jump year ...a small or mini is mature in the third year .. it jumped the second year.. refer to golden tiara ... ... a medium take 3 to 5 years.. jump MIGHt be year 3 or 4 ... a large to giant... 7 years to mature ... jump year could be 4 or 5 or 6 ... no matter what.. grow the roots until it decides when the jump time is.. and you will be pleased .... on giants or large .... with only 2 or 3 divisions .. you can ross them in half in august ... to insure extra the following year ... and you might get more the next year ... but if the roots cant support them.. they will be smaller .... ken

ken, yes, the idea was to get larger hostas sooner, than with starters or 2-3 years old ones...The future hosta bed is an empty space now, and I thought it will be nice to have some larger plants almost right away, and if I need to add one, or two, or three, I can afford to buy smaller plants, but hosta bed will look pretty decent... -------------------------------------------------- I also bought 15 ferns from Hallson and 3 Blue Mammoth divisions from Venero, they are on their way... I bought 50 lbs of Vermicompost (spl?) to mix with the soil in hosta holes only (and handful of bone meal for each hole), and the topsoil that is currently there will be mixed with 10" of compost. And I will remove as much subsoil as I can for total of about 16" bed depth...I cannot build lasagna, the area where I plan to plant hosta is right by the chain link fence, that I share with my neighbors, so I can't go up too much, besides there is my own sidewalk and a shrub, that I do not want to remove or replant (it has attitude and grows very slowly). So, I decided to go with sort of double dig method and removing subsoil... I also bought 20 Kg of Coconut coir to hold lacking moister and to fluff the soil, and if I get lucky I plan to get 1 or 2 contractor bags of alfalfa pellets to mix with soil. Someone also told me to bury one or two large fish heads 7"-10" below the roots for better growth, but person grows roses, will it work for hosta, too? So, how does it sound? Am I all set, or I need to buy something else?

THanks you two. I did a little yahooing and googling and it does seem to be horse gentian, or something closely related. I kept missing it in the book I rely on most because the full image , including the final fruiting stage, was a thumbnail inset and hard to spot. After going back and having a better look, I realized that my initial description was really lousy. The fruits remind me more of miniature apricots! I did get several decent photos but I am still having trouble posting them---they exceed the allowed space so I need to learn to shrink! Isn't there a page that walks you through how to put up photos directly beneath your inital post, and not have to go through the Gallery?? I know I have seen it before somewhere but now I can't seem to find it. I knew I could get answers on this forum!

I'm curious about leaking electricity to ground...Can that happen? Are there other "leaks" that can be traced and eliminated? How? Some background on my mystery usage: We are fortunate to have a weekend house and a weekday house. Our weekend house uses 4-5x the amount of electricity as our weekday house. I can't figure out why. Needless to say we are only in the weekend house 2 nights per week and the weekday house 5 nights per week (on average). Weekdays the two flat screen TVs and associated stereo equipment are on 4-5 hours a day. Weekend house has no TV or stereo...The range/oven and dryer is gas at both houses, the heat and hot water is oil at both. Except for the weekend house being larger (but not 4x larger), all else is fairly equal. I never understood why the weekend house sucked more electricity than the weekday house. I even purchased an electricity meter that plugs into the wall to compare the electric usage of the refrigerators...exactly the same! No all night on lights at either house. Any help?! This is pretty significant for us since electricity is 19 cents a kilowatt hour in CT!!