You cannot go wrong with mail ordering from Hallson Gardens in Wisconsin or Naylor Creek Nursery in Washington state. Chris at Hallson's promises to get their online catalog up before Xmas, and the Naylor Creek catalog for 2011 is on their website. Both places offer other perennials too.

-Babka

http://www.perennialnursery.com/

http://www.naylorcreek.com

I agree with Babka. I'll be placing a couple orders with those companies in the very near future!

I've ordered from Avalon Acres, too and been pleased. They're prices are reasonable and their quality/size is good. They're a small business, and I like doing business with them.

http://aahostas.com

bkay

To answer your original question, I ordered from the Hosta Patch years ago. Nice plants and good service. I have no idea if anything has changed.

Thanks everyone!
Been reading away at Naylor Creek ...
I love reading catalogs. Such fun on a cold winter's night.
I'll check out Avalon Acres, too!
And, thanks Andy for your comment on the Hosta Patch.

Choices, choices, and I don't usually start placing orders until the end of Jan ...

Lees Gardens in Tremont has a really good selection of hostas, does mail order and has really good prices. Hornbakers also does mail order but their prices are not as low as Lees.

If you enjoy growing hostas to maturity you can get in a co-op and order tissue cultures which are considerably less expensive to buy and to ship. Gardenweb doesnt allow the link to the group but you can do a search online for "BnPCo-opBuying: Bulb n Plant Co-op Buying". You can also get tropicals, perennials and bulbs through the co-op. I joined the group mid summer of this year and bought about 150 new varieties of hostas, 6 new elephant ears and 600 tulip bulbs.

Where in Central Illinois are you? I am in Peoria.

Here is a link that might be useful: Lees Gardens

more than 1/2 of my 1500 hosta came mail order ...

its all about knowing the good sellers.. and you have some nice recommendations here ...

hallson

naylor creek

white oak

and land of the giants ....

price is not necessarily the only factor ... some places send tiny plants for cheap .... and you end up way behind in the long run .... pay a little extra and get a giant plant ...

ken

ps: i cant see your post.. get a plantiginea if you dont have it already ....

Here is a link that might be useful: link

Thank you, everyone!
Franknjim, I�m in Springfield.
Ken, Read on � plantaginea already lives with me.

Writing on that other thread, I stumbled across an insight about my particular love for hostas.

For me, at least, it�s not about having an extensive collection. And, it�s not about being able to watch the light show, so to speak, of color changes. Receiving 150 of any kind of plant at one time would kill me. I love the idea of it, but I�d just lose track of which plant was which, so I�d never know what I�d just put in the ground. And, it would be me trying to get them in the ground � which I am getting slower at with the creaky knees after a leg break 2 years ago � A "garden" accident �

So, my motto has to be "Simplify". Which is why this weird flash of insight was helpful the other day. I don�t want very many hostas, but I want each of them to be either
1. Very distinct in shape and/or size or
2. Rather permanently planted, like a jewel in a crown, for a color and/or structural show.

My love affair with hostas began 9 years ago, about 6 months after we bought this house. That�s when I first began to explore the yard. I�d made up my mind that I would identify all the plants that had come with the house. I had gone out to a island bed in the front yard and was exploring the plants there. To be honest, I think I�d figured out the chrysanthemums the previous fall from the scent, and the flower and leaf form. But there were plants out there under those two trees that I simply didn�t know.

One small guy showed up here and there throughout the bed. Near perfect heart shaped leaves. Now that I remember that it must have been late enough that the hostas were up! Anyway, this one also had left over "sticks" sticking up, which clearly were the "stems" for its flowers. Later I got the terminology down.

I don�t remember how I did the search � but somehow the info I put into my computer popped up "hosta".

Then I figured out that I had another kind with bigger leaves which my husband told me had a "white" border. And there was one more with even bigger leaves. Then August came and this last one sent up "stems" (I still didn�t know), and the large white blooms were deliciously fragrant.

Sorry to bore you guys with my entrancement here � Different from having zillions of hosta cultivars but getting to know my hostas was kind of like an unfolding mystery novel. After I had noted the fragrant flowers, I finally stumbled across a real hosta collector. He invited me to his wonderful garden and introduced me to everything from minis to giants. Yep! Now I knew that my Hosta plantaginea � Rich told me all about fragrant hostas � wasn�t big at all!

I don�t know about other visually impaired people, but for me it is a pleasurable thing to get the feel of a plant. Hostas are good for this because you can not only feel the whole growth process, but you also can feel how the leaves form and how the plant changes from year to year. Daylilies, for example, and many other perennials are pretty similar in leaf form from one cultivar to another. Their drama is mostly in the bloom. That�s probably why I also enjoy the elephant ears. Leaves that almost grow while you are touching them. And, when I touch plants, it actually causes my brain to create an image on the inner eye �

For the same reason, I don�t really have too much interest in having hostas that "feel" pretty much the same and only show their difference in the color variations.

Thanks all. I will follow up with more research, looking through these sites.

Wellspring, you said "Sorry to bore you guys with my entrancement here" Not at all! I thoroughly enjoyed seeing a hosta through your eyes! I think you see them much more clearly than I do, and I appreciate your insights into the complexity of this beautiful plant!!
Karen

Hey Wellspring! I knew there was something that I knew when you asked your question about "anybody know the Hosta Patch?", but it just wouldn't come to me. Out of the blue, it came to me today. "The Hosta Patch" is Tom Michelletti and he has a credential or two: he's the President of the American Hosta Society.

.... And, Tom is on the board of directors for the American Hosta Growers Association.