must read-excellent hosta book

15 years ago

Working in a library gives me quite the opportunity to research Hosta books and yesterday I received what I concider the best out there. The title is "The Color Encyclopedia of Hostas" by Diana Grenfell & Michael Shadrack. This is Diana's best work yet. Written in 2004 with more than 750 plants and 407 pages. The forward is written by HRH the Prince of Wales. There are 12 chapters, the first 5 being Hostas in the wild, Hostas in the west, cultivation, gardening with Hostas,& pests diseases and other threats. THEN it gets good! The chapters are broken down NOT in alphabetical order but by COLOR! Hostas with greens leaves, Hostas with chartreuse, yellow and gold leaves, Hostas with glaucous blue, blue-gray, blue-green and gray -geen. Hostas with marginally variegated leaves, Hostas with medio-variegated leaves, Hostas with streaked, stippled, flecked, marbled, misted, and unusally marked leaves, and Hostas for connoisseurs. Each chapter contains breeder and year, name, origin, clump size and habit, description, comments and special needs, distinguishing features, similar hostas and a great photo of each one! Also included is Best Hostas for different purposes, where to see hostas, sources for and societies and other resources. The price of the book is $49.95 BUT your local library can inter-library loan it for you (as I did) if they dont own it. This book helped me so much that Im asking Santa for it this yr. Im no longer standing in my yard scratching my head saying "I just know I haVE a hosta with creamy edges" and spending all day looking for it because now I know that Antiochs cream color turns white. Other books Ive read say theyre either cream or creamy white, NOT they turn white!!! Anyway, hosta lovers will love this book!

Comments (10)

greenthumbz4mn
15 years ago
I had to buy this book last spring when I realized the Zillis book wasn't coming out anytime soon. I also bot Grenfel's Handbook to Hosta which is also excellent as well as being handier. You can pick up both books on Amazon much cheaper. The encyclopedia goes for 31.50 Used or New plus postage. I am still patiently waiting for Zillis though and am sure Amazon will also have it cheaper than the $75. Mary
billykathy
15 years ago
This is just the pick-me-up my late summer needs! Thanks, upnort! $32.97 on Amazon; free shipping! BIG SMILE!! Kathy
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jel48
15 years ago
Hi upnort. The Encyclopedia is a good book. I have it and it's my favorite next to Zilis's handbook. But they're such different types of books that it's great to have both. As a side note for any newbies, the Hosta Handbook isn't in print any more. If you want that one you'll have to look for a used copy and pay big time, from what I hear. I was just lucky enough to get one of the last new copies before it went out of print. I used a bookstore gift certificate from my son to get the Encyclopedia and it was a wonderful gift :-)
just1morehosta
15 years ago
My daughter bought The Encyclopedia,for me two Christmas.s ago, i just love it,the pictures are amazing,and the information unbeatable,i will also buy Marks new book, can't have two many,so many new hosta coming out every days,hard to keep up with them all.

If you don't have this book, you need one.

Carol
ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
15 years ago
the only caveat .... is the cultural information ....

hosta grow different in Britain ..... they can grow most anything in full sun [because it never shines.. lol .. there is a reason they are a pasty bunch .] .. due to the latitude.. and the effects of the north Atlantic drift .. which means they do NOT know winter.. as us northern folk know winter.. even though they are 1/3 closer to the north pole... go figure on that ...

ken
just1morehosta
15 years ago
Ken, was the book written for only those who live in Britain then?
Is the information still good for us,Northerners ?
How sould one use the book?

Carol
ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
15 years ago
when you read ANYTHING ... book.. web... whatever ...

look at the experience of the writers ...

IMHO ... grenfell is a premier plantswoman ... in britain ...

she has never been to my garden ... in my zone.. with my winter ... so i am careful about her suggestions ...

way back when.. i had a database going .... all kinds of info ... and one was sun suggestions... 650 entries... hosta ... so i start adding her sun tolerance suggestions... somewhere around the 350th entry.. i realize i am changing all the entries to FULL SUN .... and .. maybe a little late... i start to wonder.. why she grows them all in the sun... and if i do the same.. they burn to a crisp ...

so i look at a map ... mid MI is the 45th parallel ... where is london ... from memory ... 60th plus???

if i lay out in the sun in my yard.. i will be as pink as a lobster in an hour in mid summer... if i laid out in London on the same day .. it might take me a week to get a sun burn ...

apply such logic to hosta ...

then there is their 10 million inches of rain and fog ...

and there lack of snow or freeze in winter .. since they are zone 7 ... 8...9... can you really believe they are that much closer to the north pole.. and significant zones higher than all of us .... go figure ...

so one must relate the GROWING INFO to where it comes from... know thy source ...

in a recent post... in the perennial forum.. a zone 5 person was getting lectured from a z7 person... how easy it is to winter over roses ... trust me... zones matter ...

do you see what i am getting at ...

other than cultural info ... grenfell is cutting edge on everything else ...

shadrack is a nut.. a personal friend... they go hand in hand lol ... visited a couple weeks ago ... wanting to take pix of hosta for the new book ... unfortunately ... hail and all ... i was bummed ... he is a native Brit .... recently ensconced in buffalo of all places .... for the most part.. he is the photographer ....

ken
just1morehosta
15 years ago
Very interesting Ken,i never would have given this a thought,i do know that zone matters, i just never thought about this,coming from a book,,,daa,,,
Well, you just proved again how valuable this forum is, thank you.

Carol

ps. good information, :0)
greenthumbz4mn
15 years ago
Well, Ken, that answers the question of why Grenfell recommends sun so often for planting Hosta. a big BUTT (Eo's trademark here :o))--it is because of her that I cleared an area with lots of sun this spring and planted Hosta in it. And from thisforum, I learned which ones can take the sun. And I am LOVING growing Hosta in the sun and can hardly wait until next year when they will be even more acclimated!!! So we can all innocently stumble into things that have great results at times which makes life so fun and interesting. And I love the book for the pictures, plant descriptions, and the fact that it describes so many Hosta that I already have (and more that I need of course). Mary
jspece
15 years ago
Ken is right on. It is a great picture book (though I seem to remember a mislabeled photo or two), but us US gardeners have to carefully analyze the info. Grenfell also likes to recommend dividing medio variegated plants often to "maintain the variegation." I don't follow her logic on that. The best explanation I can come up with is that she likes the larger centers and narrower margins of the immature plants??

must read-excellent hosta book

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greenthumbz4mn

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