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Hosta that turn to carp in the summer

10 years ago

I'm sure I have a very different environment than most anyone else. Some varieties just don't seem to do well for me, while others do really well. I'm getting to the point that I think it's time to toss some of them, which is really hard to do. I keep thinking they are going to change next year, but they have a similar performance every year, even though I move them for more sun, less sun, different place.

I have some hosta that hold up nicely through most of the summer. Mostly they are workhorse types, such as Francee, So Sweet and Paradigm, etc. Then there are the spring stars that turn to carp in the summer like Orange Marmalade. Then there are those that look like carp almost all year, like Ann Kulpa, Frances Williams and Blue Angel.

How do you know when it's time to give up on a variety? How many seasons do you give them before giving up?

bk

Ann Kulpa today

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Comments (15)

ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
10 years ago
How do you know when it's time to give up on a variety?

==>>> when you run out of space.. and think that something better can use the space ...

if you move to 5 acres.. there is really no reason to get rid of any ... no space needs...

ken
DelawareDonna
10 years ago
My Guacamole and Fried Bananas are starting to look carpy, but I attribute that to being near the end of the season and not being attentive enough to their watering needs (my laziness) and waiting for rain instead.

DD
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Thank you all very much for helps. The stone is off from my heart now after reading your answers. I have always only had house plants. They have always been green and pretty all the time. This year is my first "real gardening outdoors." Without much experiences, every little unusual sign scares me. Well, I like how donnabaskets put it "Either way, the plants don't look near death." OK...At least, they are not going to die.....Thank god.. Actually the hosta was getting too much sun, although it was behind the house and supposely in the shade. However, I found that there was still too much sun there. They were turning brown always. Then, I just transplanted the hosta and the astilbe to where they are now. They were turning brown even a little more. It's Nov, and it still feels like late summer during the day. It starts getting a little cooler at night, so they are probably not cold stressed. Anyway, either way, I should not be scared now. :-) Thanks everyone.
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Thanks for the encouragement, wendyb. hey_j, you got me thinking, too. Dangerous. Expanding ok, that's doable but not now and will think really hard about adding flowers. One row of hostas if they fill out like I hope should be fine and such an improvement over the mess before. I try very hard not to be impulsive like I was when younger, because mistakes can be costly in time and money, don't like running around carting stuff home but have to, of course, and try to consider all the options and not buy the first thing I see when I am out unless it's what I went after, etc. The extra layers of newspaper mulch, that will be fine for fall and spring on both beds and maybe other places, too, just learned about that this year, lined a long strip with it topped with mulch, really helped, but didn't want to bother cutting & folding it to fit around smaller plants and roses now that they've grown a lot and thorny ones. Oh you don't know how much I wanted to add something pretty lining both the outer edges, eliminated the scalloped because of the mowing and kind semi-artificial, like it where others have used it, no more black stuff w/rolled edges if I can help it unless as a temp fix 'cuz I have a couple extra pieces, and glad I had that done, but there are prettier ways of accomplishing the same goal. But I simply ran out of steam and had to turn to other things at that point, sure glad I got them better than they were and can do that myself even if it takes 3 times longer than it would some people. And glad I didn't if I'm going to run the borders out a bit more, 6" would be good and over the winter can plan ahead and smother (or Roundup which I've been procrastinating about mixing and using because I'm kind of afraid of it) what's there and not have to dig as hard by spring as what I did. It's so blasted hot and humid today, I did what had to be done and also pulled a few BIG weeds in front. I will try to test the moisture level as soon as I can get to it, and the bottles, if needed, wouldn't have to be buried as deep as I feared to hold them if I slant them a little and can find some spikes, can use those elsewhere now and then. I really hope I don't have to go to that extreme there now but will try to get some anyway just to have on hand. You have no idea how my mind gets going and I say too much, but I don't know how many times I've previewed my posts several times, got written what I want, and don't want to hit back to check if I read correctly, know you can do it and hit forward again, but fear losing it and having to start over, glad I'm not the only one who deals with that :-).
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What a day! Just after I posted my first post I saw my friend Dale across the street come home from taking the dog for a walk. If anyone knows anything about basement flooding it is Dale because his has flooded many times. He has 3 sump pumps taking water out of the house all the time. I waited until I saw him because he is a policeman and I knew he worked late last night so I didn't want to bother him earlier in case he was sleeping. As soon as I told him about the basement he said "let me get my pump" He got a lot of the water out of the one room and even though there was still water on that side he moved into the laundry room because that is where the water was coming in. I had a foot of water. The pump worked good for a while. Dale left me with the pumt and said he was taking his family to the show but thought maybe he should wait. I told him to go. He said once the water gets lower to use a broom to push it to the pump which I did for hours but it wasn't doing a whole lot. 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Dale left the pump because he said with the amount of water in the ground some of it was going to come back into the house and right away it started too. I told him to go home. By this time my boots were water logged. Yuck. Cheryl helped me clean out some plastic dishes from one of the metal cupboards that I am getting rid of and I still have lots of china and crystal pieces to pack up. I tossed all the plastic because it has been in the baesment for a long time and I am sure it has absorbed the smell of the basement. Earlier I had asked Dale if he knew anyone that wanted metal for scrap and he said his brother would come and take it so he called him and told him what I had. I have the 2 metal cupboards, a fridge door, an old steel lawn mower, lots of chains and metal things under my dads workbench that are in metal pails. I even have an 8 foot length of copper pipe. All kinds of other things too. Dale said since I am giving his brother all the metal I was to ask him to clean out my eavestroughs which need cleaning out badly. After Dale and Cheryl left I was planning on taking a shower but forgot I couldn't. Darn it! LOL I put some water in the tub with the plug in and took a quick sponge bath to get the dirty water off my body. I felt much better. I called my brother David and asked if he got my message from when I called earlier and he said his daughter didn't give it to him. I told him about the flooding and I said I would need some help cleaning up the basement once the city guys came. He said he had a power washer but couldn't help me until after the holiday which I said was fine because I Dales brother had to remove the metal junk. I told him lots of stuff would have to be thrown out - stuff that belonged to the family that has been down there forever. I said it should have been cleaned out long ago. 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Cheryl and I had closed the basement window to keep the bugs out around the hose and must have closed it a little to tight so when the water went out of the hose it couldn't get past the window so the hose popped off. I was soaked to the skin and the dirty, germy sewer water got into my eyes. I took another hot sponge bath and really rinsed my eyes out well. I hope I don't get an infection. So now I am getting ready for bed. Sunday morning is almost here and I don't know if the City guys are going to show up or not. I'll have to get the pump working again in a few hours but I dread putting on my boots because they are soaked through. I am soooo tired and sore from all the hours of sweeping the water. One good thing about all of this is that the water was pretty clean (no sewage that I could see) and that I am getting someone to remove all that metal junk from my basement and my eavestroughs cleaned out. Plus I do have some wonderful neighbours. Sorry this update was long. Typing what happened helps me alleviate my stress. Anne
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flower_frenzy
10 years ago
I have given up on a few varieties over the years. Some varieties have given up on me as well. Lol

I typically know it's time during the 3rd growing season. The first year in my garden, I don't hold anything against any plant. If I have a frown on my face during the 2nd growing season, I put the plant on a carp list. If I still have a frown during the 3rd growing season, it's outta there by Fall.

One hosta that made my carp list this year is 'Hoosier Harmony'. It's a nice looking hosta with a good growth rate. The problem is that it's leaves are very thin. In my garden, that usually means 2 things: slug magnet and looks carppy by August. Slug magnet hostas are a bad choice for the PNW, since we have tons of slugs that lay tons of eggs.
north53 Z2b MB
10 years ago
I have three 'carpies' right now; Calypso, Groundmaster and Brim Cup.
Funny to see this post today, as I was just thinking about getting rid of the Brim Cup. It gets attacked by slugs every year and has barely grown. But I like the colour of it and would have to replace it with something similar looking. What would that be?
Groundmaster is one of those thin leafed slugs magnets. I wouldn't miss it at all, but Calypso is so beautiful in the early season, I can forgive it for its late season melt down.
bkay2000
Original Author
10 years ago
That's Orange Marmalade. It's stunning in the spring. I mentioned that I saw it at the store and how ugly it was. Phil said it was worth it for the way it looked in spring. He was right. This spring, many of my plants were really damaged by our wet, cold, warm, then back again (and again) weather. So I almost lost OM (and several others). However, it was stunning last year. The camera really doesn't capture the color, as the yellow is so bright, it's almost orange. But it's really ugly up in the summer.

5/7/12

6/28/12

8/9/12

It looks worse this year.

Then there's Ann Kulpa. This was taken the first part of May 2012, and it's already turning brown. (The cutworms got it, too) I wonder if it's just me/my weather or it's just not too hardy.
luckykat13
10 years ago
I guess Daybreak is my carpiest plant to date. Rabbits eat it. Slugs eat it. The sun burns it. And it doubles in size every year just to give me hope. Every year I'm gonna move it. Every year it sits there looking like carp!!
bkay2000
Original Author
10 years ago
And all this time I thought Paul Aden only stole the best of the best. Daybreak must be an exception. It looks good on the HL. But then, Ann Kulpa looks good on the HL, too.

bk
don_in_colorado
10 years ago
Bkay, considering you live in (scalding HOT)Texas, I'm surprised ANY of 'em still look good!!

Don B.
Babka NorCal 9b
10 years ago
If I like the way they look early on, I put them front and center outside the family room (9' wide doors). When they begin to look yucky or "carpy", I put them in a spot where I don't have to look at all the time. I really do have a difficulty in dumping a hosta...even tho I have so little room and way too many hostas. When I divide a 3 gal one, and cannot find a friend who wants yet another hosta...It takes me a day to get over it before the garbage man takes the extra parts away. People around here just don't know hostas or don't "garden". More wine.

-Babka
User
10 years ago
Frenzy, Hoosier Harmony performs well for me. It gets lots of water this year especially. It gets good morning sun and maybe a wee bit in the afternoon. All of the golds in that particular spot are doing very nicely.

Hoosier Harmony is next to Invincible Spirit, which is blooming now, and then there's Smooth Sailing, a mostly gold with a narrot green irregular margin. Its veins are becoming a bit green, but over all it is holding its gold.

So is Hoosier Harmony. Here is a picture of it recently. It is down front right. Taken Aug 24th
plantbug
10 years ago
Babka,

You can send those extra hosta to me!

plantbug
newhostalady Z6 ON, Canada
10 years ago
The post's title made me chuckle. It's so true that we are bound to have some (or at least one) that looks ugly.

For me, my ugly is Brim Cup. (Runner up to Brim Cup is Twilight.) When I bought Brim Cup in 2011, it looked nice. In 2012, it also looked good, and I patted myself on the back (especially when I found out it was considered one of the "difficult" ones). Well, I congratulated myself too soon, as this year, right off the bat, it looked ugly. Ugly it has been all season. Mind you, mine has been in a pot, so no slugs or pest issues like North53. I think mine has two problems: I've never repotted (I know, I know . . . I'm a bad girl). The second problem may be that it got too much sun in spring. So how long will I try with this hosta? I think I will try my best for 2014 and then 2015 will be the year it goes. I like a challenge, but there are so many beautiful and less demanding hostas out there that it just isn't worth my time.

Babka, I also would find it very difficult to throw away a hosta. It is hard for me to imagine that no one would want it, even for free. I certainly do not have that problem. I can sell at garage sales, fund raising events, give them to our library's gardens or just post on kijiji.ca. If I were giving them away, a posting on kijiji.ca would guarantee that they'd be gone in no time at all. Just like plantbug, I would say "send them to me!" and I'll pay the shipping, but I am in Canada.

My opinion is that if you are looking at some ugly plants, have tried almost everything you can and they continue to look ugly, then I would get rid of them. Doesn't it make you sad to look at them? Isn't life just too short to (year after year) see that kind of ugly? Part of gardening is to learn what grows well for you and what it is that makes you happy. I have purchased hosta that are going to grow too big for my garden (if I am lucky). What I am going to do? I don't know. What I do know, is that they are bringing me joy now. As for the future, well I can dream. But there are no guarantees for the future. So I choose to find enjoyment in the present.
User
10 years ago
Ditto Ken and newhostalady's posts, when they are taking up valuable real estate and they don't make me happy anymore.

You gotta know when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em...
:-)
Deb
User
10 years ago
Yep, Babka, when your Snake Eyes hits the splitting size, please think of me. It will never go into TC, so the availability is limited. Sigh.....maybe one of the Striptease clan will produce another similar wide thong and..... I'd suggest naming it Victoria's Secret!

Thinking about Ann Kulpa being such a problem for BKay...It was that for me as well all of last year. Then this year it started out beautiful. Then after all the rain, I discovered the pot was holding the water. It wasn't draining properly. Not saying that cured all Ann Kulpa's ills. I think it is not cut out for high humidity climates even though it likes to get watered. Let's see what I find in my records, considering I don't have any 2012 pictures unless they were put on Flickr.

In May 2013 it was developing a twist in the leaf.

This is it in June . Not what I'd call a fast grower.
bkay2000
Original Author
10 years ago
Several of mine got too much sun this year. Cleo had not quite lost her interest in hosta in the spring, so I put them anywhere I thought would discourage her. I'm going to repot Ann Kulpa before fall and see if that might solve some of her problems. I'm also going to keep her in shade next year. I need to find a way to shade her and Frances Williams in the spring until the pecan trees leaf out, which is usually May. I may try some of Mocc's umbrellas.

Next year is my last year for Frances Williams if she still looks as ugly as she has in the past. She's been totally shaded except those early spring months. I"m going to try one more season with Blue Angel, too. I'm going to totally wash the soil out in early February, before it starts to pip and give it a bleach bath. If that doesn't get rid of the anthracnose, then I quit. It just gets too ugly (it's the only one with it.)

bk

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