It's true! Good things come to those who are patient, and sometimes to those who aren't LOL!!! Brrejr sent a VERY generous package and my mailman (who knows me all too well) tracked me down at the pool and hand delivered it to me so they wouldn't sit in the heat waiting for me to come home. I am the lucky recipient of: Guardian Angel Pineapple Punch Blue Blazes Blue Arrow Blue Bunting Midwest Magic They are all having a drink in the kitchen and will be lounging there until the heat wave ends here. Thanks so much, I love them all! And thank you to Lelan for organizing. This is always a high point of the summer for me :-) Alexa

I give everyone the benefit of the doubt that the advise they give is well intentioned and aims to help the new people who might not know about hosta problems including the HVX virus. It took me years and years to listen to Ken about growing Hostas on the driveway and in the sun. I've been really happy that I finally listened. The adivice and warning about HVX is important to know. The bottom line is that it is a personal choice what we do with that knowledge. I suppose I'm unconventional in my garden because I move my plants around all the time and at the slightest whim. My aim, possibly different than most others, is that my garden look full and pleasing to me this year, right now. I like my plants to grow well but having the absolute perfect conditions and the largest size is not that important to me. I write this not as advice to others but as a confirmation to anyone who might think like I do and choose to go in their own direction. It's your garden - do what you like. As far as HVX goes, I take it very seriously. I had at least one or two that had the virus before I'd ever heard what it was. I destroyed them and the few they contaminated by me not knowing enough to be careful. Since that time I do occasionally buy from Box Stores or local nurseries where I know I've seen HVX plants before. I just try to be careful with those plants. I'm not the most organized person so some day I will no doubt slip and should one of the plants have HVX it might cross to another. I'll live with it. I think HH put it very well and said you should be very, very careful. If you are it's your choice. I think Bkay made an important point about all the other things that can go wrong with the hostas. Right now tree roots, voles and cutworms have passed HVX on my worry list. Neimtodes are a mild annoyance since they don't show up until late in the year. Here are a few of my mislabeled plants and a few I bought knowing I was risking the HVX I 'willed' this plant to become cupped for many many years. It never did and I bought another Abiqua Drinking Gourd. I like this one anyway. The Canadian Nursery was not Hosta Choice Took me a couple years to realize this wasn't Fringe Benefit since I could never find a good picture of Fringe Benefit. Eventually, because of a picture of OBL from hostafreak I identified it. I'm very happy with this mistake. I knowingly bought this plant and took the risk. You can't beat the price and I've keep it in one place, no moving around. So far so good. It's one of my best light centered hostas. The leaves are thick and the it keeps the dark green color even in the sun. This was from a local nursery where I'd seen cases of HVX in the past. I checked that it was from a different supplier than the virused ones were and took the chance. I hadn't bought this plant from mail order because I'd heard it was hard to grow (it's not). Seeing the large size plant in a pot at a resasonable price seemed worth it to me.

I, too, believe it's the zone you are in and heat and humidity plays a big role, as well. I have a neighbor, sort of that has hostas in all day sun afternoon sun at that. She has them on the wrong side of her house. This is them and she also doesn't water them much. So they are pretty much ugly for most of the season. They lasted longer this season because it's been less hot and humid and we've had more rain is my thinking. So take into account your zone and all these factors first.

Chris, when I started reading your post for a second there I thought it was mine.....lol! ! I too started when I got a job at a nursery and collected what few hostas we sold. Yes, about 8 varieties, but it was closer to 25 yrs ago. I didn't go on to start my own plant business, however, I retired after 16 years and went into the bead business, taking a hiatus from plants, even though I still bought some hostas and other plants on a casual basis. I didn't get into really collecting hostas until about 2003, when I got married to my former boss and best friend, the garden center owner, who had by that time sold the business and went to work in the garden center of a local big box store. And I was retired by then, also. When he sold his house and we moved his small hosta collection to my garden, we started making more beds and developing the rest of our wooded acre, collecting more and more hostas along the way, dividing the ones we had already. We are still at it, ripping out that godawful Japanese honeysuckle and replacing it with hostas! As I am an artist, a garden is just another medium to explore, and I haven't finished with it, yet. I have to create, and I have to have my hands in the soil. I've actually been a gardener since about age 3, following my dad's heels when he worked our farm when I was growing up. There were always huge vegetable gardens and flowers. Two new big beds last year and one smaller one this year have been added, and I still get that little tingle when I see an awesome new hosta, so I guess the honeymoon continues! In spite of the deer, and the voles, and the groundhogs, drought, cutworms, pillbugs and the heat, I'm still making wish lists, checking every garden center, planting seeds, yanking out more honeysuckle, looking at online catalogs and reading every post on here. Hope springs eternal, I KNOW next year is gonna be wonderful! Sandy