There are a handful of us here on this forum from the South. To have good chance at longterm success in our southern climate we pretty much grow all (or most) of our hostas in pots. You can go back through the pages of past threads and find tons of info about this subject. The reason for that is for the winter chill that hostas need when they are dormant over the winter months and, at least in my case, protection from pill bugs. They can be a quick devourer of a hosta. bkay, who lives close to you in Dallas, has a really nice collection and has been in the hobby (at least I call it a hobby) for several years. She'll likely chime in here.

As far as 4-5 hours of direct morning sun, I can't address what affect that will have once we get into the hot summer months. Some of mine do get some morning sun but not that much. I have heavy tree cover and my pots all get dappled sun, although some that get an hour or more of direct afternoon sun for periods of time, depending on the sun's position throughout the summer.

I started with the Fragrant hostas. They seem to be the most hardy for us. Here are some examples of those, but there are many more. They are what I would suggest for getting your feet wet.

http://www.perennialnursery.com/fragrant-flowering-hostas/

HI Beth,

You can do it. It won't be as easy as in pots (which I do), but you can do it. Some hosta take more sun than others. Some can get by with less chilling than others. So it's a matter of getting the right hosta. Yes, you will need to raise the beds to get nice growth, as they like good drainage.

Three web addresses you might find useful. One is to the hostalibrary.org, where you can see what the hosta look like, one is myhostas.be, which usually tells you how big they get and the other is to Tony Avent's list of hosta for warm climates at http://www.plantdelights.com/Article/Summer-Perennials. They won't be as big for us in the South as they are in the North, so plan on them being about a third smaller than they say they will be.

There have been a couple of trial gardens around here, one in Tyler and one at the Dallas Arboretum. The Dallas Arboretum is in alkaline soil, so they had to amend for that. I'm going to paste the two trials to the below. The Tyler one is a pdf in columns. It loses the columns when I paste it, so imagine that the numbers are in columns. The first number is the rating in June, the second is August, the third is October and the last is the average. They had a sprinkler problem for one of the evaluation years, so that skewed the results somewhat.

Most of these are older varieties of hosta, so I would look at Green Mountain to order them. They send really nice sized divisions for a very reasonable price. Most of what you find locally is not necessarily well suited to our environment. One of the local wholesale nurseries has a history of selling plants diseased with HVX, so if I were buying hosta at an independent nursery, ask if they get their plants from GreenLake nursery. If so, don't get them. HVX will contaminate your soil and you cannot grow hosta in that spot for many years.

I'm going to have to post the trial results in another post as Houzz limits the size of posts.

bk

Beth, Houzz would not let me post the list for some reason. It says the file is too big. (Houzz recently bought Gardenweb, so things are different.)

I posted it over at http://perennialnursery.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=60370. It's on Hallson's Gardens forum. Hallson's sells excellent large hosta, by the way, and has some newer varieties than Green Mountain. For the last few years, Calloway's has gotten some nice hosta in the spring. They are not necessarily the recommended varieties, though. (They aren't here yet.)

I have a photo somewhere of hosta Sugar and Cream done in a raised bed in Dallas. It's striking. I'll see if I can find it and post it.

bk

Thank you so much for the detailed information both of you. I think I will have to put Hostas on the back burner for a while until I can get some beds planted. Once I move my roses out of pots and into beds I will be able to plant Hostas in pots on the patio where the roses currently sit. I did have three Hostas in pots last year and just loved them. I have 50 pots of roses so adding more pots to water, which is a daily occurrence in July and August already takes 45 minutes. I may just get a few to set amongst the pots of roses for some different color but just treat them as annuals. Again, thank you for the information.

You don't have to treat them as annuals, as they come back every year. They die back with the first freeze and start to come back in March. I have a couple that I've had for 20 years or so. They get bigger and more luxurious every year. They're probably going to need more shade than your roses, though. (I could stand some lessons on potted roses, as I kept one of my neighbor's when she moved to assisted living.)

bk
Some of mine:

Which ones have you had for 20 years?

I wish I could do as well with roses as I do with hostas! :)

bkay, those are beautiful. It really makes me want to get some. Adding five or ten more pots would only add 5 minutes to the watering time. You convinced me, now I'll have to add to my garden.

As to the roses, they are really pretty easy to grow. Just think of them as shrubs with flowers. Years ago they developed a reputation as being difficult to take care of but many of the modern roses are extremely black spot resistant. I'd suggest if you want to try a few roses that you look at the Earth Kind roses. A&M has done extensive research and have a list of roses that are drought and disease tolerant and are very, very easy to grow. Some of them have beautiful blooms. Belinda's Dream is my favorite. Here is a link to the A&M website. http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/earthkindroses/ .

So now I have to look up those sites you gave me and find a few Hostas to put in pots to set amongst my roses.

One more question. How drought tolerant are they? Do they need to stay moist all the time or can they tolerate going dry between waterings?

They like to stay moist. If you put them in much sun, they need to be watered daily when it gets hot. They are more drought tolerant in the ground. One that has done particularly well for me is Squash Casserole. It was new last year and takes a good deal of sun, so did Cathedral Windows, though it burned before Squash Casserole. The edges will burn when they can't take up water as fast as they expire it. Some will take almost no sun. I fried a couple last year, as my neighbor took out a huge old elm tree and I lost a lot of shade. (Don't increase the amount of sun during the summer, as they need to acclimate as they come up.)

Santa, in the first photo, the solid green one, second one back is one I've had for 20 years or so. It's a noid. It's probably some variation of hyacinthia, but who knows? I have a u. albomarginata and another noid that is the same color as Blue Angel. I'll post them for you later.

bk

Squash Casserole, but be aware this one gets really big. (It doesn't show on this photo, but the color of the flowers is exactly the perfect contrast. It must be straight across the color wheel or something like that. Even my color blind DH noticed it.)

Beth....after talking myself out of it a couple of times I started with three just to test the waters in 2012. When they all came back in 2012 I moved forward from there. That was long before I found this forum and just sort of figured things out by accident. Getting advice here has sure made some things easier.

Gorgeous SC, bk. Somehow I haven't gotten one of those yet.

Santa, I have a noid I call unknown green, one I call big blue and an u. albomarginata that are somewhere in the 20 year old range. Many of those years were neglected years, as I didn't have a huge interest in them. They got watered and a handful of yard fertilizer once a year.

Unknown green has never been divided (it's really slow):

So, those are my 20 year old hosta in pots.

bk

I didn't know you had been keeping them for that long. Very impressive.

They're beauties, bkay! I've come to appreciate the bright greens & yellows more now than before.

Your sport will be interesting to watch develop.