First of all, let's clarify that there is a difference between love and lust! And many here fall into the second category. lol

I became interested because I wanted to cover my hill with something. The woman at work across the aisle lives down the street from Savory's and I'm sure you can figure out the rest.

Teresa

North, Prior to 2005 I was only aware of the green w/ white edge, the total green, the green w/ white centers...I had no inkling of the vast variety of hostas that existed until I attended a hosta show that summer of 2005. I enjoyed those "oldies" that I had, but immediately fell in love with the table upon table of cut leaves in this large conference hall. I went around with paper and pen and wrote down the name of those that I thought were outstanding. Needless to say I'm now at 300 hostas. Wahoo for the leaf shows...oh, and I just bought 'Wahoo'.

Donna

When I first started gardening, my friend gave me 5 lancifolia when she moved out of state. I watered them EVERY night w/ a Miracle Gro feeder! LOL They were UNREAL - unlike any lancifolia I have seen since! I also used get-a-slug profusely and religiously so they were enormous and perfect. Everyone commented on them and I thought they were the most perfect plant ever and had no idea there were more than "the green one".

Then my sister had a landscape company do her yard...and they put in Krossa Regal. WOW.

That was the beginning of the end!

LOL Teresa, you're right!

There's a fine line between love and lust for me. Its lust until I acquire it, then its love as I care for it and watch it grow.

Donna

but Donna ..... maybe I wasn't talking about hostas ........lol

I have loved growing things probably longer than most people have been growing hostas. However,I lived in an area where hostas would not grow,namely Florida. I had never even heard of them until 2002,when I got some to grow in a place in the shade where nothing else would grow. I bought and planted 9 that year,only to have voles eat 6 of them! Well,I'm not going to let something as little as a vole stop me! They haven't been that bad since that time. Now,280 hostas or so later,I'm out of control! The reason I say or so,is there are numerous seedlings,and I don't even know how many there are of those. You get the idea! Phil

Boy I can't really say except that it started with Undulata, and then Plantaginea, and doing more plant shopping, the forum enabling me, plant shopping, and more plant shopping. I think that I started with a perennial garden in full sun. Once I finished that I moved to the side of my yard, in shade. It exploded from there. I have been thankful that I was able to move to a larger yard, with lots more potential to supply my habit.

My infatuation just started this year... I was talking to my neighbor and admiring her hostas. She said that she had over 25 different kinds and I was like, what?!?!? I had no clue there were so many! So, I started looking at the garden centers and low and behold I found that there were so many I couldn't choose just one - and have been buying ever since. Our yard has lots of shade and absolutely no landscaping, so its a match made in heaven! :)

I received my first Hosta as a gift from my boss's wife. They lived out in Chesterland Ohio. She told me of a Hosta "farm" that was down the road from them. It turned out to be Jean and Pete Ruh.

Since I was in the neighborhood I dropped in. I had the extreme pleasure of meeting Jean. She took me for a tour of their gardens, I purchased a few, she gave me a few and before I knew, hooked line and sinker.

That was around 12 or so years ago and since then every part of the yard possible I have made room for Hosta.

I then joined AHS, my local, North Coast Hosta Society and this forum that all provide support for my addiction, a love of a leaf.

Deb

I started 33 years ago with some green & whites and some solid greens (all undulatas of some variety). Didn't really know there were more kinds until about 1993 when my hubby's sister and her husband moved to the country, got interested in hostas and got me into them too...they took me to the House of Hosta in Green Bay.

Then my brother-in-law died suddenly and my SIL moved to a condo in the city and she gave me divisions of any hosta I wanted. That was it; I was hooked and it gave me great comfort to grow the plants that my brother-in-law loved so passionately. That was the year 2000. When we moved to DeForest in 2005, I brought 134 varieties of hosta with me to our new wooded lot. Lots of black cherry trees and white oaks! I was HOME...in my Hosta-Haven!

Char

North, great question! I have loved Coleus for decades and discovered Hostas the year that my local garden center displayed them next to the new Coleus cultivars! Suddenly I could see them & now have 4 dozen different cultivars. i feel so tranquil sitting in the dappled shade admiring their foliage ~ I know what you mean. marea

ROFLOL Teresa!

Donna

Long boring story to nonhosta people!!! 14 years ago we moved to our current home where there was just grass and trees. I had to leave all my plants at our former home because of the time of year we moved. As we were clearing a 'jungle' of growth from the property line my new neighbor introduced herself and asked what I planned on doing with the new space in the spring. I said hostas!!! Together and with my sister Rita's help with providing hostas we planted a huge hosta bed along the property line(3 stages, 5 years). It was then that I decided that I would learn all I could about a plant that I had had for years but knew nothing about.

My sister had been introduced to hostas by me years before and she never bothered keeping names of new hostas she acquired either so we have learned together!

Now I have 5 hosta books, the Hosta Forum, and The Hosta Library, and still don't know much more than I did before.(only kidding) Well, I know a little more than I did.

I have quite a few hosta , but add to my collection a few each year after I convince DH that I need to take up more grass.(I start on him in the fall,keep it up when we are in the south in the Winter, and by Spring he thinks it was his idea to make another bed for my darlings.)

Aren't they wonderful?!?!

Hostas are my passion!

Connie

I always saw hostas as these green and white ratty, sunburned, slug-eaten plants ringing a tree or mailbox or lamp post. I always wondered why people even planted the things. Then one day I got a Song Sparrow catalog in the mail with 6 pages or so of pictures of different hostas. I thought "WOW, is that what those ugly plants are capable of looking like." Just for confirmation, I did a google search and ended up here. And you can probably guess the rest.

I'll be one of the oldest, 35 yrs. I was selling for Walter Gardens when they grew 30-acre fields of undulata. One year I sold the entire Wal-Mart chain hosta undulata.

About 30 yrs ago while at Walters for a meeting John Walters ask us to go back to his house to look at a new hosta they were thinking about growing. John explained that a lady from Michigan had this hosta and did we think it would sell? I told him to grow all he could and I personally would sell everyone he could grow.

The lady was Pauline Banyei and the hosta was H.'Gold Standard' and the rest is history. The plant would have found its way into the trade without my influence but that jump-started the propagation of Gold Standard in a big way.

I tried to grow the things I was selling and found hosta so easy for a traveling salesman to care for which led me to sell hosta hard and with confidence. At that time long ago landscaping was yews and juniper as "foundation planting" and 2 silver maples one on each side of the sidewalk.

As hard as it is to believe now there were landscapers and garden centers that had never heard of hosta. There was a large landscaper/garden center in Lexington Ky that had never carried hosta, they started with 10 the first year and when I left sales to start the mulch business they had 2 30X90 greenhouses devoted to hosta.

I started back in the late 1970's or early 1980's with a trip to a family friend/relative. Teresa lived in Iowa on a farm and had the most wonderful gardens. She was about 65 years old, then. She traveled to Hosta society meeetings (I never knew such a thing existed) Each sample I received had to have a "label"... Teresa was in a nursing home and not sure what happened to her gardens.... I think I received Gold Standard, Krossa Regal, Golden Tiara, Royal Standard, and maybe a few others. I still have the original plants.....

The rest is history, I think it is love and a passion!!!
I lost count around 350 varieties...have lots of room, but need to clear out the woods and undergrowth. Had Open-heart surgery last year, so now I have 2 years worth of work to complete!!!

I think I need to "clone" myself X 4 to get everything done!!!!

Karla

Well, I have a more simple answer--Just LOOK at Them!! And you get to garden in the shade...what could be better than that! The first time I saw a "real" hosta garden I was in awe, like most everyone else I didn't have any idea that there were more than 3 or 4 different ones.

I've had a hosta, here or there, for several years, but didn't get into them seriously until 2004. I'd remarried in the fall of 2003 and my new husband's yard was a blank slate. He had a few landscape variety hostas in the front of the house, and I brought a couple from my old house. Then, that next summer, I built a shade garden and put in a few hosta from places like Best Buy... Fried Green Tomatoes, Krossa Regal, Golden Tiara, Special Gift, Undulata, Birchwood Parkey's gold.... I discovered the hosta forum on GW, and the Hosta Library, and hostas on sale on Ebay.... I also found out that hosta blossums are supposed to attract hummingbirds, and THEN, I spent the whole autumn buying hostas as fast as I could, all the while asking people more knowledgeable then myself (mostly here in the hosta forum) how late in the fall you could plant hosta. I kept buying and planting until October :-) At this point, I'm slowing down a little because my yard is filling up. I have over 200 varities and about 240 hostas in all. I also have Hosta Handbook, which I am going to keep for 12-15 years and then sell to finance my retirement :-)

Hmmm, I really can't remember how it started with me. I guess with some of us, *it just happens*! We wake up one morning and sort of like finding out you're pregnant--one day you're not, and the next--your whole life is altered and you'll never be the same again!!! :O)

Actually, my husband could deal with the pregnancies much better! We stopped at two and with the hosta, *it takes a village*, a very LARGE village!!!hehehee

Andrea,
You said, "That was the beginning of the end." I don't think there is an end...

I did not like hosta like many - still refuse to have "the" green one and "the" green and white one...However, After 15 years of trying to grow shade plants in sun and sun plants in shade...I know, what can I say, I'm slow....

Now I get it. Visited a beautiful shade garden filled with about 150 hosta and I was hooked. Started my hosta garden the next day! Even my Husband (who suggests I belong to a cult) understands when "its time to dig another garden". I have two new shade gardens in the works right now!

Fun thread to read! Great photo Connie.

North,
I didnt like Hostas at all until I found this forum. I thought they were just PLAIN UGLY. My tune changed one night when I was walking in our neighborhood and spotted a pretty Hosta with unusual coloring. Boy did I do a double-take. Never saw one like that before. (In fact, its rare to see any Hostas around here except the typical landscaper standbys.)

I searched the internet and ended up here. Posted a newbie question asking for the name of the Hosta with the unusual bluish-green edges. (HA!... you can imagine the responses I got.)

Well, I still walk the same route in my neighborhood and that one Hosta still catches my eye. I suspect it is GE.

I'm up to 100 and still going strong.

Next...

They grew......in my very shady yard!!!
My neighbour gave me a couple.
A brother gave me a few.
A sister gave me a few.
I bought a few.
They kept right on growing.
Then I found the Hosta Library and this forum.
My hosta lust grew.
I wanted more and more

Loving hostas.......June

Not by listening to my mother, LOLOL. For some reason she was never fond of them, probably didn't know of all the different kinds. But I always remember her saying, I don't want hostas in my garden. She had beautiful shade gardens, but no hosta.
Then my SIL gave her one for a gift. It was just the typical Undulata Albomarginata and she planted it away from her garden in the corner of the house, lol.

When they sold their home in 2002, I was digging up some of her plants and I just couldn't leave the hosta there. I brought it to my house and planted it behind my garage, lol.

My yard was mostly sun except for a few silver maples in the back yard. In 2004 we had a patio put in there and I wanted to plant a garden around it and needed shade plants and started looking at hostas. Wow! I never knew there were so many and how beautiful they could be!

My very first hosta purchase was 'Frances Williams' at the suggestion of a nursery lady. I then began searching for information on them on the internet and found this place. Three years later I've made 3 other places for hosta in our yard and now have 52 different kinds.

I guess sometimes it's OK not to listen to your mother, lol.

Janet

I remember as a little girl (in the 1960s) being fascinated by a large-leafed green plant with an interesting bloom my mom called a plantain lily. Hadn't thought much about it till @ 15 years ago when I acquired a nursery catalog with colorful photos of hosta. I remember the first three to which I was attracted: Frances Williams, Summer Music and On Stage. I now own all three, plus quite a few others, of course.

When we bought our first house in Minneapolis 40 years ago (one block from Lake Nokomis where it's ALL shade) I started to garden when I was home with little ones. Two little old ladies across the alley saw me planting impatiens cuz I thought that's all that would grow there - they gave me a couple of their stash of 100's and that was it. The next 30 years took me away from gardening and back to work but I bought one or two here and there. A move to Columbus, OH really did it - another really shady yard and I knew what to do. The stupid thing is - I left them there when we moved to Chicagoland. Didn't know GW and Ken's "How-to-Move-a-Hosta" and I'm still mad at myself for not digging them up. Left them in Minneapolis and left them in Columbus. So I started over again 17 years ago here. I hate starting over! But I'll NEVER leave a hosta again if we move - I have three grown kids who know how to dig. And sometimes the golfer will if I throw a tantrum. I still think about those two old women who I never quite properly thanked.

Westy

Hmmm, not lust at first.
Mine started 25 years ago. Aquired three. Then loved to propagate and dissect things. Saw how easy it was to take three to 30 in a short time. Then my perennial lust kicked in and I needed contrast and hosta foliage gave that to me. But then the lust came about 15 years ago when my collection of perennials started to grow...with that my lust for unusual foliage plants developed and with it....Hostas.

Loving art & nature it was a shoe in. I am now at love again. I don't have to have, unless its unusual, but aquire joy from the different patterns & size that my plants develope each year.

So, love, lust, crazy addiction and back from hosta rehab...love and appreciation. Does that sound crazy?

re: "So, love, lust, crazy addiction and back from hosta rehab...love and appreciation. Does that sound crazy?"

Not to *us*! ;o)

BTW--That *rebab* thing----NEVER works! hehehe

Like many of you, I used to think of hosta as those ratty looking green plants. 15 years ago we moved to our current home and there were maybe a dozen or so varieties here. Several undulatas, but to me they looked fabulous compared to what I had known. I still didn't really get into them though, maybe I was too busy with cleaning up the neglected, weedy, sunny areas and work and being "mom". About 10 years ago we did some remodeling and I saw the "Shady Oaks" catalog. It was love or maybe lust at first sight. I never knew there were so many varieties. I'm having to rein in my addiction slightly, as I'm running out of shade. The good news is that we've purchased acerage (13) and plan to build in a couple of years and there are lots of mature oaks there. Can't wait to let loose over there.

We have lived in this house 17 years. The first seven years we rented so all I didn't do any landscaping. When we bought the house, I spent several years working on the interior, and it wasn't until around 99 or 2000 that I had the money and time to work on the yard. We have eleven mature pecan trees so I was searching for something that would grow in the shade. My daughter suggested hostas. The first year I bought a green one. It grew, and I divided it. One division made it and the other died. I added the green and white the next year. So far so good, but nothing knocked my socks off. Then a local garden center sold Krossa. I added two. One made it and the other died, but the one that made it just kept getting better. I saw Sum and Substance in one of those rip off catalogs. That made me curious about the other hostas of the year. I elbowed my way past the teenagers to the computer, and the addiction started. I got my own laptop so I could find out more about hostas. I am up to three hundred. The first two years of collecting we had hot, drought conditions. Somehow I made it through that with most of my hostas still alive. This summer has been much better. There is actually something to look at in my garden.

Great question North; I spent 3 years in Japan as a child & saw the beautiful tranquil gardens w/ Hosta ,Bonsi, & Koi. I have lived in in many places through school & work & marriage. I even grew poppies & lupine in a garden in Iceland for 12 years. I had gotten a 'green& white' one in 96 it now has 76 offspring & 81 eyes. I really loved that plant. Then we were in Philadelphia last year to take our son to collage I saw hundreds of S&S -WOW- I promptly got online to find out why my plants were not as big as S&S ....boy did I find out hostas come in so many sizes & shapes . I ordered 7 online last spring .....after the recent Tri- State leaf show in Northern NJ my dh has come to love the leaf also . We have about 50 types now, hoping to someday get at least the top-100 . Our new plants are all young but growing nicely , & we have plenty of space to fill. `dot

I have never been a huge fan of flowers. And my favorite color is green. It was a no brainer for me!

~Tasha

Twenty or so years ago I fell in love with big leafed plants while hiking the Pacific Northwest forests and bogs. Ten or so years ago I saw a Pacific Northwest garden with mature blue hosta in a garden magazine. A few years later I had an opportunity to tour a garden that had a mature S & S.

This really is a case of delayed gratification.

Three years ago I finally moved to a place with sufficient moisture and real estate to plant the large leafed beauties.

I know it gets ugly, but Undulatta started this madness . . .

On our daily walk, my friend Carol and I passed someone's burn pile. On the top were several plants, upside down, with dry roots waving in the air. The plants themselves were trying desperately to grow "up." We stopped to look, and I decided that any plant that determined to grow deserved a second chance. I drove back later and rescued them. The "wrong way" leaves made them challenging to plant, but (of course) many survived, and 15+ years later I still have a few of them. I tend to move them around to fill empty spots. Of course, I quickly discovered that there was a world of "better" hostas out there, and the obsession began.

Wow, this has been a lot of fun to read about. Although everyone's experience differed, I did notice a common theme-the discovery of this forum!

I think it was someone who posted by the name of Dentaybow, who referred me to this forum. From there I learned about the dreaded virus and reputable nurseries to order from. I live in a remote area where hosta weren't readily available and previously I had mostly been ordering bare root dormant hostas. Then last year I saw infected hosta being sold at local nurseries and big box outlets and decided to avoid them. From Papou's site I discovered Floral & Hardy and sent my first order for fully leafed out hostas this year. That was very exciting!

I have yet to view a hosta garden in person, so will continue to get my inspiration from this site. I don't have a lot of hostas yet, but I do have shade and prefer gardening in it.

Thanks to everyone for sharing the stories of their journeys into the wonderful world of hosta!

I have been a serious hosta collector since 2002. My wife Therese got me started when she brought home 4 hostas back in 1998...one of which was Sun Power. This wonderful hosta has grown to 34 inches tall x 75 inches wide this year. It is an eye catcher and definitely my absolute favorite.

Papou

Terrific plant,Papou! You have probably the best specimen of that plant I have ever seen! Phil

I have always loved plants , but mainly flowering sun loving plants. I bought a few cheap hostas for a shady area of my yard, they were ok, nothing special. Then I got remarried , moved to a house with alot of shade.so I moved the few hostas I had with me. Shortly after moving I meet an elderly women who has hundreds of differnt hostas, she gave me some plants , so now it's 3 years and about a hundred different kinds of hostas later. Thats how my love started for hostas.

When I rented a house in New Orleans a few years back, there was a space sparsely lanscaped which the landlord gave me permission to tend - "so long as you don't make the yard man's job any more difficult" - meaning he still had to be able to rake in a straight line over the forty square feet. The area was compacted sand. I began by working in compost to the soil - stealing neighbors' discarded bags of yard waste. Then I had to contend with my next issue: the three surrounding neighbors all had live oaks which butted up against the communal fences, painting my whole landscaping canvas in medium to heavy shade. I plotted out my plan and spaced things out. One major obstacle was this big green plant in one corner of the yard which was screwing up my plans. I focused my initial efforts on removing it. Well, it was very well established. As I began investigating the four-square-foot plant - a green leafy monster - I found ten years' worth of Mardi Gras beads hiding among the leaves, a few dog toys from tenants' past, and a whole load of charcoal right in the center. The plant seemed to have no unifying stalk - just a bunch of long green leaves spewing out everywhere etched with deep veins. Removing it was going to be very, very difficult. I revised my plan. Instead of removing the plant, I would chop it back to allow for the spacing I wanted for the three shrubs I was putting in along the fence in one of the few spots of the yard which enjoyed any sun at all. I probably chopped a foot of the plant off two sides. I threw the leaves I'd chopped off along the side of the fence toward two dark back corners - an attempt to push water overflow back into my neighbors' yards where it belonged. A few months passed. I found gardenweb.com looking for more info on plants which grow well in the shade. I planted. Things grew. Life was good. I eventually gravitated to the carnivorous plant forum and had some modest succes growing pitcher plants in long-strand sphagnum moss in wooden pots.

Well, I look over at my discard piles one day and notice that the discarded leaves I'd thrown in the corner had gone from horizontal to vertical. Somehow, that pieces of that big green plant which I'd removed had survived the torture of the shovel and had rooted in the darkest corner of the yard and were thriving! I needed to know more about that plant. I now had much respect for it. No longer was it an obstacle and adversary, but a warrior and a friend. I found through neighboring gardeners that the plant was a hosta. From that day forward, whenever I met a hosta, I'd say to whoever was with me, "THAT! is a hosta." Much respect.

Well, my brief affair with the hosta may have ended there, but it did not. I married and moved to Virginia. After two hosta-less years in Virginia Beach, I moved to the DC area. Three weeks ago, my small family left our yardless condo for a new home - complete with a yard. A very big, well-landscaped yard. My wife is a Master Gardener in Virginia and a Master Herbalist, but I am the constant gardener in the family. Whoever owned this house before us loved hostas. It has about thirty different hosta plants blended into the landscape - probably six different types I think I've found so far. I'd like to post pictures later when I'm more comfortable with the forum and solicit some help in identifying my hostas. My eye is not familiar enough yet with the nuances of the hosta to tie the name of the hosta to its visual profile.

I'm looking forward to cultivating my hosta. I don't know if I'm a anti-divider yet, but I have no plans to divide this year. I watched the video someone posted on how to divide - thanks for that. I plan to collect seeds this fall to see if I can germinate some new little lives.

Post-Katrina, I sometimes wonder about how my old yard in New Orleans is doing. One thing is certain - that big old green hosta is definitely still anchoring one corner of that yard!

My mil gave me a bunch of hostas when we redid our front walk a few years ago and just thought they were nice. A couple of weeks a go I went on a hosta garden tour and completely fell in love with the look of it. So now I'm researching all the different types of hostas to start my own hosta garden next spring. Needing mainly sun tolerant ones for my area of the yard where the garden will be.

Sabrina