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book review: hostas by rosemary barrett (2004)

lisasmall
16 years ago

Hostas by Rosemary Barrett

New Zealand: David Bateman, Ltd.

New York: Firefly Books, Inc.

(2004) 144 pp.

(This book was mentioned without comment by Don R in his list of hosta books here.)

I got this from the library and I'll say it's a good book for beginners. It's heavily illustrated with photographs, most of which are lovely but a few plagued by the shadows that occur when taking pics of shade plants. The photographer was Derek Hughes, and there are some beautiful shots in there. Despite the plentitude of good photos, though, it is more than a picture book. Barrett clearly loves the plants, hardly ever met a hosta or any other plant she didn't like, and has a charming way of speaking. From p. 87:

  • I have a little statue of Salome (who looks very demure and does not have any sinful veils), which I have surrounded with 'June'...

I'd criticize her for overkindness. On p. 112, she recommends comfrey  a complete thug of a plant, and one which causes poison-ivy like symptoms in some people. She is fond of interplanting kalmia (mountain laurel) and never once mentions that it's a deadly poison, much more dangerous than azaleas or rhodies. And as far as hostas go, she does not mention HVX nor nematodes, and does not identify any cultivar as slugbait, though she recommends highly and/or often a few which we here have roundly condemned as mere snail food. She does identify a few species or cultivars as slug-resistant.

I was puzzled by her favorites and the way she left some of our more common cultivars completely out, until I realized she was writing in New Zealand about plants available there. Nonetheless, she mentions only one 'Lakeside' once; and doesn't mention the 'Kiwi' cultivars at all, which struck me as odd, considering where she lives. She's also a big fan of two cultivars I've never heard anyone here mention at all, repeatedly recommending or describing 'Lucy Vitols' and ' Summer Haze.' She has created at least one cultivar from seed herself, 'Biddy's Blue.'

What makes the book ideal for beginners is she marches out several different garden plans and is extremely specific about what plants she recommends, instead of saying "try a small gold here" in the more generic way we here in the Hosta Forum usually start out with. This is probably a real blessing to newbies, who want specific advice and can be overwhelmed with all the choices available in, say, small golds. At the conclusion of her garden plans, she says she doesn't expect people to follow them religiously and that they should use their own taste, but still, specificity is a kindness to someone floundering with the idea of wading through allll the hostas that are out there.

One unusual pattern with her plans: in several instances, she suggests a group of three in which the color pattern and size are the same  say green with a yellow edge  but chooses three different cultivars, perhaps one smooth, one cupped, the other quilted or twisted.

She has a...

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