Dani, Yes I know just about where you are located. I've ordered from Plum Hill gardens several times, and highly recommend them. They send great fans with HUGE roots!(Something you don't always see from the northern growers.) I'm one that often purchases some of the older "tried and true" varieties, especially the ones that have received awards. Click here for descriptions of awards. I'm trying to collect as many as I can through the years. I got a kick out of your statement, I really won't have any more room after this summer. LITERALLY. Famous last words that many of us have uttered. Goot luck whittling your list down to 50. I see one of your choices is 'Priscilla's Dream'. That's one of my favorites, and is presently pictured on my member page. Just a word about 'Give Me Eight'...That one is supposed to be a polytepal, but has never polytepaled for me...rather disappointing. Have fun planting and designing your landscape. You're hooked now! Julie

This choice is about time/attention/care vs. money. If you HAVE time, attention and care to give, go for it. If you don't, don't bother...it's not a guarantee and it will not make an impact in your garden for literally years to come. I bought at least 500 plugs from Zilis and others about 6 years ago. Let me just say that I do not have 500 hostas in my garden right now. But I didn't really have the time/attention/care to give. I'm not always consistent with my gardening, many of my plugs died, but the tough ones made it. They all needed to be stepped up...like the eBay seller says...taken out of the plug and planted in tiny pots. I kept mine in woodland shade so that I didn't have to water as much. Mine overwintered there with absolutely no attention from me. For 4 years, some croaked when we had a long dry spell and they didn't get enough water in summer, some croaked in the spring from rot, or whatever. Some grew straight through the little pots into the ground, were bursting out of their little pots and were hardy little buggers. That tended to be certain ones...I can tell you that the London Fog hosta can nearly not be killed. Halcyon was tough, and so were Captain Kirk, Ocean Isle and Katie Q. I did that with 80% and then 20% I planted directly in my weedy field garden...in October! Most of them made it just fine and have now turned into wonderful hostas. Some of the large plugs that I did this way included Orange Marmelade, First Frost, Guacamole, Pineapple Upside Down Cake, Stained Glass. Ocean Isle. To be honest, I think these ones were more successful then the ones in the woods that stayed in pots, but it may have just been luck. For Minis, I only had one hosta variety survive my extreme abuse: Cracker Crumbs. I had one survive in the field and 2 or 3 in the woods...out of 10 plugs. From my experience, I learned about myself: I do better with instant gratification, I don't really HAVE the time that I'd like to have for growing plugs. I think you have to know yourself, or try it, learn and grow! It's fun...and you can always write a post about it, later!

mine is finally two smallish clumps - its on my short list for favorite mini greens...

You're starting to get more and more blooming! I like Buddy's Betsy and Aaron's Little Whopper. My favorite seedling is the Stoke the Fire seedling because of the color combo and the nice edge.. Sepals often look like that with early bloom. I'm sure they'll straighten out on subsequent blooms. Debra