Hi everybody, I seem to have a lot of trouble integrating the white/green ones into the landscape with hostas of different colours. I don't know why. Here's a picture of Francee in the middle and her sport, Patriot, at the top. I planted aruncus aesthofolius just starting to flower) with its white plumes in the same bed. Actually the aruncus was there first.

My name says it all...67...I'm sure over time that will grow. I LOVE perennials, don't buy annuals unless something catches my eye...no, im not a perennial 'snob', i just got hooked on perennials like my mother did before me....waiting for spring to see the babies return is such a thrill.... I fell in love with hosta back in the fall of 1980 when I asked for a piece of hosta called Lancifolia...plain green, pointy leaves, but was she a beauty. I took her home in a green plastic bag and left her in the backyard, sitting in the bag, against the house until I had a chance to plant her. I had three small children, got busy, and soon forgot about the hosta. Winter came, winter left, spring followed, and I was outdoors checking on my "babies"...I gasped when I saw the garbage bag, forgotten and still propped against the house but the gasp was one of amazement! Poking out of the bag were all these pointy, green tips, obviously a hosta was growing!!!! Imagine that...a garbage bag 'hosta bed'. That was it for me...anything that could survive such neglect deserved a place of honour in my garden. To this day my daughters and I refer to this hosta as Mary Long because that is the lady who gave me my first hosta. I still love the older hosta from which all these newbies originated, in one form or another...now we have fancy names, exotic names, suggestive names aka Striptease, Obscene Gesture, etc etc etc but they are all hosta, they are beautiful, majestic plants and will never go out of style....they don't demand special care, if you don't fertilize they still reward you with flowers and they grow bigger and more beautiful each year but they DO COME BACK, YEAR AFTER YEAR. Saying I collect hosta really means I am hiding behind the excuse that my gardens are a jumbled mess, somewhat of a jungle and the hosta that live in those beds have the job of detracting from that mess...lol. Here's a pic of the Lancifolia that survived the garbage bag and fondly named Mary Long. This is the "mother" plant from which my divisions are made. She's been moved so many times I can't remember how many, yet look at her...isn't she a beauty? Anyone who ever says "less is more" ......surely that saying doesn't apply to hosta, does it? If that's the case, then I'm a hopeless case. My backyard is 42ft. wide only but it is jammed with all perennial plants. I have a bed under the tiny deck which consists of hostas, astilbes, hellebores, one heuchera, a columbine, a dwarf goat's beard, a peony, a shrubby sweet pea perennial...a bed on the other side of stairs, consisting again of hosta, peony, bergamot, anemone, brunnera, jacob's ladder, primula, easter lily, astilbe, a bed along each side of the house with more hosta, fern, tall phlox, lillies, a bed under the front window which continues down the front walkway entrance, consisting of rose of sharon, weigela, spirea, potentilla, yellow Itoh peony, hosta, then a long (not really long) free standing bed out front, forsythia row down one side of driveway, and a bed that incorporates the city-planted maple...mainly comprised of variety of low growing sedums. Just a whole lot of jumbled plants, nothing fancy or scientific, but boy they sure make me smile!!! Gardening gets me up and at it, sore back and all, and keeps me moving and happy with the world in general. My motto is that if I see it and like it, it goes home with me! I'll worry about placement later...I have no room for anything more, hosta or otherwise but, like a lot of you, I dig up more sod, lug soil bags around and plant to my heart's content!

Waaaaaa, wailing here in despair because I can't join in! Aside from waiting for Bruce's Aphrodite to bloom, this is the most anticipated thread for me since it involves some serious hosta shopping, lol. You all scored BIG ... I'm so looking forward to pics, please? Jamie...how lucky for you to get a Sleeping Star..I kind of remember a post about it...have it on my want list. I also have a new June Spirit...it'll be nice to compare growing notes. :-) FF...you said you were already growing Cold Heart...I missed out on it this year as it was sold out..."lime colour with corrugation" got my heart racing...is it doing well in your garden? I would really love to see a pic of it if at all possible, please? All of you on this thread sound like the "A Team" of Acquisitions!!! I really got caught up in your excitement...thanks for sharing. :-) Jo

Wow. You guys did not disappoint. The best photos on GW are in the Hosta forum. That Green Dragonet is a very cool flower scape. It looks like it has some montana genes in it. The montanas are just beginning to send up scapes and those bracts look great too. Josephine, I'm strictly an amateur. I just put my name on the photos so that people know not to take them without permission. I've always tried to take good photos, but last Fall I bought my first DSLR to go on a trip, and I took an online course in composition. Both of those things really improved my photos. The pics above I took with a Macro lens, but you can do the same with a point and shoot using the macro or flower setting. And you can zoom in with an iPad or iPhone or crop your photo with editing software on your phone. The equipment helps, but knowing how to take the photo trumps it. Steve