There's an interesting diversity about how to plant Hosta gardens for display. Some believe that they should be set up to display each plant without 'competition', others like 'tight' groupings. In the first case, the 'display' garden, it takes a lot of research to determine both the 'eventual' clump width, but, as in one of my recent ventures into this arena, you should find out the 'height' of each cultivar. I'm planning a post regarding a recent 'oops' I did regarding the first 'bed' my wife let me do, where the height issue is so very obvious. Since all of the plants in said bed are VERY robust, I'll not yet move the two plants that should be to properly 'fit', height wise, and am contemplating a post here about my faux paux. Just now re-visiting the prior posts, I see that Dr. Ken has posted one of the best (as usual, he has great insight), advise comments: Something along the order of 'plant the known Big Beasties' where they will have long term room. I have previously posted a bed where I thought, for sure, that the infamous beast Hosta 'Empress Wu' (in my NSHO it is more properly called 'Xanadu Empress Wu', but that's another whole long story that only the esteemed Mr. Pollock should properly explain), but now a few years later I'm sure that several of the neighbors planted around it will, eventually, have to find a new home. In the meanwhile, fwiw, hh

Teuth, ain't no doubt plantaginea is the most fragrant one, its heritage is in the vast majority of fragrant cultivars, having said that, it requires full sun and heat. Just for fun, read what Schmid has to say on this specie. Where I am, in Steveston, I cannot give it the required amount of sun exposure to get it to flower, out here in the Lower Mainland it NEEDS full sun before it will flower reliably. A friend of mine has a couple of them flanking the stairs to his front door in around 49th and Kingsway with full southern exposure and they're magnificent in August. Any that I've had over the years having never had open flowers, the buds invariably aborted, so I finally gave up on it. I do however have a variety of fragrant hostas such as 'Fragrant Bouquet', 'Guacamole' and 'Stained Glass' as the most reliably performers but they compete in the yard with Oriental Lilies, which win out in the fragrance department every year, particularly during the day, the hostas become more noticeable in the evening, you just have to get closer to them than the lilies. I also have 'Fragrant Blue', which took years before it finally started to produce any fragrance and it is very different from the ones mentioned above, more like Freesias and quite subtle, definitely something you have to stick your nose in before you smell it. Thank goodness it's such a nice shade of blue, a vigorous grower and set seeds readily. Pieter

'Andrew' is a slow growing variety, see http://www.myhostas.be/db/view/Andrew Also, with all that white I suspect it is somewhat less shade tolerant, in other words it might need some more direct sun than what it is getting at the moment. Pieter

Ken: I live very close to Avon so that's good to know. I can certainly wing it. Littlebug: Mature sizes I do have in my info/planning spreadsheet. I like knowing at least that much lol. I'm okay with some touching but the main reason that I ask is because I know the result of poor planning and I don't want my hostas to suffer from being too squished if avoidable. I might be extra paranoid because the first hostas planted on the property were so incredibly squished together. I'm a numbers person and I like to have a general formula to guide me. If I imagine each hosta as a circle with the mature measurements, what's a reasonable amount of overlap? Beyond that, I'm excited to play around with color and texture. josephines167: Thank you :) I'm very excited. I would probably be doing the same thing. I feel fortunate that after redesigning a bunch of planting beds I have a fair amount of space to work with. But of course if I continue to add more, which is very possible, that space will decrease xD