Esther, I have it. It helped me deal with the minis in containers of multiple hosta. However, all my books are in boxes these days, and I cannot refresh my memory with it in hand.

I figured out that I should not mess with the minis, but I could deal with the smalls much better. Organizing them to show at best advantage IN GENERAL was my desire, and not duplicating any layout in particular. So I never noticed that the pictures did not identify each plant.

If I lived in hosta country like most of the forum does, I'd be able to check out gardening books from the public library and see how useful each one is before I bring it home to stay. I notice that it is now available as a Kindle e-book, which is great for saving shelf space. That would have been my first choice instead of the print volume.

Have you checked out the Hostapedia? You'd need a dictionary stand to hold it open for you!

Esther, there is a thread about hosta books on this forum. And, I know on the New England Forum (I hung out there for a couple of years), there is a nice long thread about GARDENING reference books. I just bumped up the thread on our forum for your perusal.

I have that book along with any other Hosta books available. I'm a person that gets inspired by the visual. I look though my books all the time either for an idea for some issue or just allow the book to 'speak' to me.

I don't collect a lot of tiny or very small hostas but I do have some. I definitely got some ideas from looking at this book. I realized this year that keeping the mini's in pots is fine but in the long run more tricky for me in my climate. This year I created two more areas where the little ones could be in the ground (pictures attached). The second picture where the Buddha lives also had the little pagoda thing added inspired by a picture in the book. I do agree there could have been more identifying going on.

The first picture brings these plants up higher to view as you walk by. It was partially inspired by the raised bed in the book although that one was made of wood and much higher and larger than this.

This garden previously had a collection of blues and greens. This is one of the few areas of the garden without overhead watering. The plants here don't get so spotty from hard water. The places where the mini's and smalls are was full of plants similar to the size of Devon Green and Blue Wedgwood. It looks fine but I realized this year that using the contrast of size was pleasing to my eye.

mctavish - love your treatment of mini/smalls. The second pic especially appeals to me with the bigger guys framing the scene and the mediums forming a backdrop for the littles! Now where in my yard could I create something similar? Food for winter thought.
Jan

McT,

I really LOVE how you made a new frontal tier for the mini hostas. Really makes them pop, and there's no chance of the big guy hostas growing over them and crowding them out. Are your stones in the front cemented or just loose-piled? If they are just loose, what's preventing them from just sliding out into a big pile of rocks?

I also like the way the mini hostas are bookended by the big-guy hostas in the second picture, and particularly love that big-guy hosta on the right which is light green and centrally streaked with gold. What is that hosta (not that I have room for it, but I can certainly enjoy yours!)?

I put my mini hostas all into that 16" glazed ceramic pot with the 8" diameter mini heuchie Frost in the middle. Putting them up into the air in that pot was the best way I could see to highlight them and keep them from being overshadowed by the big-guy hostas.

Esther, while reading another thread today, I found this post by HH, and I clipped it for you. He mentions a mini-hosta group on Yahoo. So you could perhaps READ the topics discussed there about minis, and determine if it is useful to you. I provide the snippet complete for you here.

Esther, Mocc, &mctavish
I just got the Book of Small Hostas too. Going to see Kathy Shadrack at our monthly breakfast this Sat. Any questions you have about the book?

Hi, Jane.

Thank you. My concerns about the book were outlined in my originating post to this thread. It was frustrating to see picture after picture of beautiful hostas with out any captions identifying them. Also, their list of hosta sources did not include many frequently mentioned in this forum.