HI Diane, thank you. I really had no idea of the type of hosta available, like you mention, the local selection isn't much, so I wasn't really impressed with hosta. Then I started seeing some of the ones you see listed in catalogs, but in person and they are really gorgeous. I am pretty new to hosta, the few that I have aren't size enough to start dividing to share yet, other than a few typical undualatas. I recently placed an order from Naylor Creek, but there are so many, I'd still like to buy locally. I did get a few from Adam's in Newburgh..I had gotten my Aphrodite there three years ago, and my Guacamole, and also my Francee. Fire and Ice was a real treat to find there. So far, that is the only place I have seen any variety. I think I got Brim Cup at Devitts a few years back. I may try Matterhorn later in the week. I don't think I am going to pay big bucks though. I'll still look, and if I find a must have at a reasonable price, fine, but if not, it will give me a chance to see some of them 'in person'. Most times a photo or catalog just does not do a plant justice. It is easy to overlook one in a catalog, that has happened a few times to me. I recently saw on the hosta forum someone mentioned Hallson Gardens as a reliable source. Now you've confirmed it too. I'll have to check out their website. Thank you for the weblink above about HVX...that is really a scary thing in the back of my mind. I see from your site, you REALLY like Hosta. How have you faired with this virus? I see you have an extensive and impressive collection. Very nice, I bet they are just beautiful. Any chance you can post a photo or so of your hosta gardens. I don't think I've ever seen that many hosta even listed in a catalog..lol. Are deer or groundhogs a factor where you are? One of the things that concern me as I start my journey of hosta exploration and gathering, is that the deer will come along and make a feast of that many in one location. I am planning a new shade garden that will be 50 to 75 feet by 15 or so feet with a sitting area, so I have many to gather. We have a deer run through here, but knock on hickory...the spray I use has helped so far this season. Of all my gardens I have only lost the tops off my geranium Splish Splash and a few leaves from an Oreintal Lily stem. That's it. You never know when they will decide to eat it anyway, or a rain will come and I do not get to spray though. Thank you again for the reminder that some places put hosta on sale this time of year, I'll have to make the rounds again. JoAnn

Well for me my list is always changing, and this thread has helped shape it a bit; at the moment I plan on: Aunt Gerties Gold Black Cherry Indian Stripe Opalka Sudduths brandywine or Cowlick's Brandywine Aunt Rubys german green maybe, maybe not NAR Neves Azorean Noir de Crimee -1 Indian stripe and BFT take precidence Yellow Out Red In: late, SD, solid 6 oz. globe, tart, the best of the keeping tomatoes from sand hill Mortgage Lifter - didn't make it to plant out So far from this years garden I plan to grow again Black from Tula 2 if I can manage space Sungold is great but I might give Sunsugar a shot Rutgers x 2 w/ room to sprawl, had some already, lots more coming soon. Marianna's peace had a few, very good for bruschetta, lots more coming Jury still out on Vinson Watts Willard Wynn Green Zebra Morado Won't be growing Early Ssubakus Aliana Old German will need a huge turn around to get another shot, only one not to set fruit Roman Candle Roller Coaster Russo Sicilian Toggeta - my straw bail failures probably aren't fair to judge. I don't think it's worth saving seed from, but maybe seed from another source some day. I've got 15 toms this year, but I think 11 or 12 will be a better fit next year, not as much growing space doing away w/ the straw bales and have to keep some yard for the kids and the dog. W/ room for maybe 12 plants, why do I have over 20 that I want to grow already? This year I had 16 choices didn't plant out green pineapple but gave it away. I had 38 plants make it to grow out time, a kill 2 weeks before plant out helped because I did have about 30 varieties to choose from.

We were active members of the local society when we had a local society. Some of the above post have started to nibble at the edges of the real issues. 1. Distance. There are limits to how far people will go to attend a meeting. Most of our regular attendees traveled less than half an hour to the meetings. The farthest among them traveled about 45 minutes. While some people may happily travel longer, it is a very real constraint. 2. Time of meetings. Every group I've been involved in has been torn in half between two very basic points of view. Older, retired people often dislike driving at night, and prefer holding meetings weekend afternoons. Younger, working people dislike having meetings during their prime gardening hours and prefer holding meetings weekday evenings. 3. Programming. This was our biggest issue. There really aren't that many speakers/programs with the breadth of experience to give a totally new program every year. It isn't easy to come up with interesting enough programs once a month, almost every month, year after year. This is the one area the ARS really let us down. Because of our size, we were very dependent on outside material. At that point, they had about 3 canned programs on hardy roses, and that was it. It was equally hard to get appropriate newsletter material from outside. If you are far enough north that you can pretty much cut and paste standard HT culture articles, this isn't going to be an issue. If you feel the standard articles need a lot of editing to be accurate, then you are going to be in our position where everything has to be created by your society, and that is a lot of work. 4. Participation. 'Many hands make light work' is true. None of this is a problem if you have enough people willing to help. If you can get 12 people to each contribute a newsletter article once a year, that's an original article every month, with nobody doing a lot of work. However, you have to ask a lot of people to get those 12. The same is true for every other society job. Someone may be willing to be President for a year or two, but quits in a huff after ten years because they have been pushed too far. Notice I haven't said anything about shows. Within fairly reasonable guidelines, shows can be what the local society wants them to be. We had shows where the Dowager and Modern Shrub classes had more entries and more exhibitors than Exhibition HT. If we had continued on, we were seriously considering creating our own Shrub certificates because we needed a Shrub court.

Yes, it was just released over the weekend, and we are now growing users. It will probably take a few weeks to get some traction if different cities.