IMHO.. hosta is the species name.. and therefore is latin.. and is therefore.. a plural in an of itself ...

we killed this topic a few weeks back.. and in the hosta forum.. that probably means its already fallen to page 50 .. lol ..

i hate pots.. so i will leave that for others.. they are a real problem up in ground freeze area. in re: over wintering ..

ken

Oh good about the Latin part. I thought hosta was right, but I definitely missed the previous discussion.

Sorry you hate hosta in pots, Ken, but zones are zones are zones and mine doesn't seem to like hosta in the ground much.

Mine (about 90) are all in pots. I use mini bark and fert with 1/2 strength Miracle Grow. I'm too lazy to re-write everything I've said recently about growing hostas in pots, but if you do a search here on the forum, you will find many, many, many posts (and opinions)on growing them in pots, both in the great frozen North as well as the never freeze places like mine here in Silicon Valley.

-Babka

Thanks, Babka.

Okay, gang, I've got it. Everyone has already answered every question that could possibly be asked, so those of us who are new and don't quite know what to use to search for the answers are not supposed to ask because the group that is already has spoken.

Henceforth I will search as best I can, read and not ask.

Sorry, that sounded snarkier than I really meant it to. I do try to be attentive and read and I have already started a search on "pots", and will garner all that I can. I also host a forum and understand perfectly well how tedious it is to answer the same question over and over and over. I am ashamed and embarrassed and would delete my previous message if I could, but I can't, so I'm currently cooking up a big pot of crow....

Hey come on guys. I have been a lurker here for over 5 yrs and have seen subjects come up that over and over and many of you have taken the time and answered our new members questions. Even I have learned more when this happens. I have noticed that we have many new members since the first of the year. Please Landlady do ask questons they will be answered in do time.

landlady, 1. make sure you have a good draining soil and good draining pots, 2. always deep soak from under the leaf, top watering does not ensure good watering, and 3. I feed once a week with miracle grow 3T to sprayer. In zone 8 you should not have to do much for freezing. I leave mine where they are and just dump leaves on them after dormant.

OK. On the top of the main hosta page is a link to search as well as FAQ. I did a search for you using "hostas in pots". I'm sure you will find answers there.

Here are the results. You will see there are a lot of differing experiences. We get rain here in winter and although my pots did just fine uncovered for about 3 years, then half of them rotted, so now I keep them dry.

Lujack- I'm so glad that you offered so much help answering the question. ;-(

-Babka

Here is a link that might be useful: 849 results

Thanks Ilovetogrow.

And my apologies to everyone else for starting a fight.

I'm a real lazy gardener. I repot when I have to. I repotted most everything this past spring because I had used some moisture control potting soil in some pots and wanted to make sure I had removed it all (I found one pot I still missed.). If the pot looks too full when it starts to come up in the spring, I repot. If a pot only has 5 or 6 eyes, I won't repot it. If it has 40 eyes and they are pretty much filling the top of the pot, I will move it to a bigger pot. Sometimes, I will knock it out of the pot and see if the roots are filling the pot.

I don't usually completely (remove all the soil) repot a hosta unless I have a specific reason. I just knock off the excess soil and put it into a larger pot. Getting rid of the moisture control soil was a reason to totally repot. I'm going to totally repot my Blue Angel, as it has a soil borne disease. I will bare root my old blue hosta as I'm going to divide it. I'll do this in the spring.

Either Pieter or Steve (i can't remember which) totally replaces the soil on a regular basis in their potted hosta. I can't see any difference between totally repotting a hosta and digging up a hosta and moving it every couple of years. It seems like it would regularly set the hosta back. Babka doesn't repot hers totally, either.

I use a mixture I make for potting. I don't use the lime, as we already have alkaline water and soil, so I really don't want to add more alkalinity to my plants. I used to use miracle grow and never had any problems until I bought their mositure control product. It stays too wet in the winter, so don't use it. Right now, this is the mix I'm making:

3 parts pine bark fines
1 part sphagnum peat (not reed or sedge peat)
1-2 parts perlite
garden lime (not using the lime)
controlled release fertilizer
micro-nutrient powder (substitute: small amount of good, composted manure

For fertilizer, it varies. I used to just put a handful of lawn fertilizer in each pot in the spring and then use miracle grow occasionally. I put the contol release in the potting soil, so did not use the lawn fertilizer this year. I will just use Miracle Grow occasionally now that the contol release has been used up.

No, the rules are not any different. Make sure you have good drainage. Water regularly. Put your pots up on pot feet for both drainage and to keep the slugs at bay.

Any other questions, feel free to ask.

To inspire you, I've included one of my favorite photos of hosta in a pot. It's not mine, but a great pot and a great photo. It belongs to Tepelus.

Now, what fight did you start?

bkay

I am in a very different zone and I now loathe pots so I can not help a tremendous amount but some tips I have learned- I was told to not fertilize too much past July/August so the roots will harden off to get ready for winter. But that is for my zone 4A I have used miracle grow and osmocote with decent results.

Also hostas do not like being disturbed so I would GUESS, find a pot that is large enough so you don't have to disturb it for several years....wait that's for huge hostas.... I do not believe you need to repot to give it new soil as hostas will sit untouched in the ground with out problems.

As far as soil I am a bit at a loss, I used a well draining soil mix last year that throughout the summer all my plants loved but come winter let them drown! But we also had a tough winter with temps staying -10 to 5 with almost no snow cover until March. I even had hostas in pots for three years in a garden loamy soil that was fine until this year.I just recently found it also might have been the pots I had-not a lot of drainage holes. Maybe in your zone it wouldn't be so bad- I used 1 part Humas(yellow white bag at walmart ) and 1 part garden soil. I am now using, for my container garden, 1 part Humas(yellow white bag at walmart), 1 part dehydrated cow manure, 1 part organic Miracle grow garden soil-the whole garden seems to love it-granted it's not hostas but still all the veggies love it and it seems to drain wonderfully.

Overwintering has always been a concern for me, a suggestion that I got from a few people were to lay the pots on their sides- which I did not do this winter and they all died. On my whiskey barrels I couldn't tip them on their side but this year I am thinking I am going to try cutting out a circle from plywood to cover the top to see if that helps. Out of my three barrels only one hosta survived(thank heavens it was my brandy new $50 hosta!) I have heard that putting a tarp over the pots helps as well but I have also heard someone lost theirs that way.

post all the questions you want just remember every one has an off day and sometimes things don't quite come across in writing the way one would hope for it to come across.

Lovely and thank you !!!

And I guess I will be repotting everything at least this first year, because although I had never ever used it before, this year I did use the Miracle Gro moisture control potting soil. I've never grown anything forever in pots, and have only used them as temporary homes for roses while I was waiting to figure out where they would eventually go into the ground.

Wouldn't you just know I would change my habits at exactly the wrong time. Oh well...living = learning. I guess I can't complain.

Aly, you are mistaken about pot size. If you put them in too big a pot, they will rot. They don't mind being somewhat root bound, though. Pot them in the next size up from the pot they come in and don't move them to a larger pot until they fill the one they're in.

Your problem with the potting soil will come over the winter. It sets you up for rot. I have the one I mentioned earlier that still has the moisture control soil. I am reluctant to mess with it this time of year because of the heat. The lower leaves are turning yellow. I can't find anything that would cause it except the soil is heavy. There's no evidence of rot. So what I'm doing is being careful not to overwater that pot. (The others can't be overwatered as they drain too well.) I'm going to drill some more holes in the pot tomorrow and keeping it on pot feet. If I hold off until spring to repot it, I will make sure that it protected from most of the rain after it goes dormant.

Something that Chris (from Hallson's) told me that I finally got was, that they like frequent watering, but they like air to their roots. So think about that when you choose your potting medium.

As far as overwintering (other than the 1 pot discussed earlier in this thread), I don't do anything. They sit where they sit. They get the rain they get. I don't water after they go dormant. Babka covers hers so that they stay dry until they start to emerge in the spring. (She's in the silicon valley and gets most of her rain in the winter.) I'm in Dallas, so you can compare your climate to mine.

The tipping of the pots is used in areas that stay frozen all winter. If I understand it, they wait until the pot freezes and tip it over on it's side. They store them on the north side of the building so they don't get any sun. The point in tipping them is to keep them frozen and not let the weather continuously thaw and refreeze them. If they leave them upright, the top of the pot may thaw slightly and hold water right on top of the crown. As the pot is not totally thawed, the water can't drain. It just sits there and can rot the crown.

It's usually suggested that you don't fertilize really close to the time the plant goes dormant. For you and me, that's sometime in November, as mine usually straggle on until the first freeze. You can tell they are starting to go dormant. They're no longer vibrant, the colors fade, the edges turn brown...you'll know not to fertilize them. You can just tell. Just like you do with your roses.

They're not near as difficult as roses, I promise.

bkay

Landlady,

Where are you located? Bkay is in Texas, Babka in California, I love to grow is in Jacksonville, and moccasin landing is in Alabama (probably currently under water). All of them grow exclusively in pots. Like many from the Great White North I use pots to enhance different parts of my garden and to grow smaller plants on. Right now I've got about 20 plants in pots. Some of those will go in the ground for winter, some will overwinter in pots.

What people try to do in winter is to avoid crown rot. When Hostas are dormant they need very little water, just a little once a month would suffice. In the north when pots freeze we usually tip them on their sides in order to prevent rain/snow from accumulating on top of the frozen pot and causing the crown to rot during thaws. If your pots don't freeze you don't have to do that. Just make sure they are draining well. That's one of the reasons for not using MG moisture control and for the different mixes that drain well.

AFAIK, there is no Hosta that can't be grown in a container. The really big ones probably won't get as big as they would in the ground but if you have a container big enough they'll get big.

"They're not near as difficult as roses, I promise."
amuses me because I think roses are really easy. But, I've been messing with them for 20 years or so and have more than 200, so I guess I have just gotten familiar with them the way you are with hosta.

I am in a similar situation to Babka in that I don't get rain at all except in our "winter", which is anytime after November and through March. The hosta that overwintered perfectly well for me last winter were all under the eave of the north side of the house (and were not in "moisture control" potting medium). Most of the newer ones are on a wooden platform under a box elder; maybe I will put a huge umbrella over them for the winter.

Ok...so in zone 5 or 6...couldn't you just put them in a shed/unheated garage to overwinter like strawberries? Cuz that's what I was planning to do with the 4 or 5 I have potted...

Well you can do that, EC, but when you do this you must remember that you are raising the zone for these Hosta by one or two zones. That means they will start to come up earlier than they otherwise would for your zone. If you've got a sunny porch to put them on you would be OK, especially with 4 or 5 plants. You can also take them out during the day and bring them in at night or you could bring them outside and cover them up at night. But with large numbers that's not feasible. Ask Ken about the 1500 he tried to winter over in his barn one winter.

Steve

Whoa, sorry, Steve, I didn't mean not to have been clear. I'm in California, 50 miles north of San Francisco, 25 miles or so from the coast, probably about 75 miles north of Babka. We get no rain at all (unless the roof has been removed for renovation) during the summer, and hard freezes are very rare in the winter when we get all of the rain we are going to get...sometimes a lot, sometimes not.

When I first dipped into hosta last year, this group did advise me to grow in pots, and I thought it was mostly because it doesn't get cold enough here for hosta if they are in the ground. Maybe I got the reason wrong, but I now have 30+ hosta in pots, some in their first and some in their second year. Everything I potted last year made it through the winter, much to my surprise. I was gonna chalk my indulgence last season up to a huge mistake and move on, but much to my delight every one of the them has shown up this year, and that led me to indulge in another 18+ new ones this year.

Anyway, if I read your post correctly, even the moisture control potting soil may not be a problem for me as long as I have adequate drainage during the winter months? If so, I definitely have a drill and can easily add holes to the lower sides of all those plastic nursery pots that only have bottom drainage...

I did not read all the responses to the original post, so I am sorry if I repeat some already posted thoughts.

OK, Hosta (or Hostas, see thread on Hosta pluraldom earlier posted, teehee).

Here, mixed experiences.

For many years now we took all the potted Hostas to a 'wintering' area, packed them in close (note: Zone 4 here), surrounded them with straw bails. The idea was to create a stable, temperature 'mass' to protect them over the winter.

As we have about 200 varieties in pots, and at an average of about 5 pots per variety, this was a very time and energy intensive project, both in Fall putting them 'down' and then again in Spring bringing them back out.

Last Fall I broke my foot and ankle, so all the usual Fall projects went undone.

My wife and I discussed this problem. I said, 'Hey, we have, for several years now, left potted Hostas in a few 'back' areas for evaluation, quarantine, and other reasons, and they've, by and large, lived, so let's relax and leave all the several hundred ones out exposed this winter, take a chance.

Worked! So many hours and stress relieved, woohoo!

Then again, this past winter was very mild, even here in Z4.

Shifting gears:

Every so often m'lady plants Hostas in an un-drain holed pot. WHOOPS, not good. You are now aware. Prepare various drill bits to give drainage.

Shift to 3rd gear:

Every so often we've, in a hurry or lazy, dropped 'potted' hostas into holes in the garden.

Most of the time we've gotten away with that.

However, . . . just last week I had red-flagged (I bought some Home Depot 'Red Flags') a Hosta that was exhibiting all of the classic 'root bound' symptoms. I assumed it was our usual problem of Red Pine (almost as bad as Maple) tree root strangulation.

WRONG! Turned out this time it was a Hosta that had been 'dropped' into the garden in a pot, and it root-bound itself. No wonder, it was a big monster type Hosta (one of the several dozen S&S children) and was only in a nursery gallon pot, yikes!

We've gotten away with this before because the pot planted Hosta just grew out the bottom and went on to thrive, but this time we were burnt.

I could go on with another gear, but by now I'm sure you get the picture: potted Hosta is a whole 'nother discussion, and many folk will tell varied stories, or so I hope!

Thanks for re-starting an always interesting story!

Potted plants are what some folk have to do, others choose to do, and so many other points in between.

As alway, we wish you all the best with your green thumbs,

hh

I would cover them with a tarp, particularly if they are still in the moisture control potting soil. It just never dries out without some higher temperatures, which we don't always get in the winter.

You have a while to think about it, though.

bkay

Not exactly LL. Moisture control mix has a lot of coir in it instead of peat. This is to help it hold more water. You want a mix that drains well, not one that holds water. During dormancy you want your Hostas to be dry. A wet mix will increase the likelihood of crown rot. If you wintered over with the MG moisture control last year and didn't lose anything then you were fortunate.

BTW, the only reason the high zone peeps don't grow in the ground is because they want the lower air temps around the Hosta. Hosta need at least 40 days of temps 40 degrees F or below. If your climate can give them that you might be able to grow them in the ground. If you are going to try that you probably want to try it with a plantaginea type first. That group of Hosta originally come from a warmer climate and do well in a longer growing season.

Steve

Very interesting thread! I learned a lot about potting in my zone! Thanks!!!

Thanks Steve! I do have a sunny porch area that they can hang out in over winter, except it also has a wood burner in it and it will get up to regular "indoor" temps at times. I'll have to think on that one. I could probably "kick them out" while we use the room and bring them back in later, it wouldn't be for days, more like hours.

Most of my potted Hosta are to inhance my landscape, I have an eclectic mix outside as well as inside. Here are most of them:

Coir, eh? I have wondered what coir is and why I have been seeing the word/name pop up a lot over the last year or two.

Steve, your explanations have helped me understand -- finally -- the whys behind the suggestions that Bkay and others have offered. Now I get it. It does amaze me how many times I can read directions and information and still be confused, and often there is just a key piece that is missing from the puzzle. In this case it had to do with the coir holding moisture.

I will pursue a re-potting mixture and/or finally get my a** in gear and make one for myself. As Bkay said, I have several months in which to get this project underway before the rains do come.

Susan

Coir comes from coconut husks.

-Babka

So, Bkay, when you make your potting medium, do you screen your "ingredients"?

I killed about thirty plants a couple years ago with Miracle Gro Moisture Control soil....Hostas, fuchsias, gardenias and I can't remember what else. It is great for annuals in hanging baskets in summer but for anything that is wintered over it doesn't drain. Some were outdoors and some were in my heated greenhouse. :(