Planting
When to Plant Hostas
- Buy hostas as dormant, bare-root divisions or potted plants and plant them in the spring or fall.
- Hostas can be planted during the summer growing season but will need extra attention (mostly watering) to ensure that they do not succumb to the heat of summer.
Where to Plant Hostas
Hostas’ large leaves do not lend themselves well to full sun; they do best in partial sun or dappled shade but will grow in deep shade, too. Once established, they can take the summer heat and withstand mild droughts.
Hostas prefer soil that is well-draining and fertile (amend the soil with compost or rotted manure if your soil is poor). They do not like to sit in wet soil, so plant in a raised area or where the soil doesn’t stay saturated (especially in winter). Ideally, the soil should have a pH between slightly acidic and neutral (6.5 to 7.0), although hostas are forgiving.w
How to Plant Hostas
- Dig a hole that’s about twice the width and depth of the root ball of the plant. Loosening the soil in the planting area will benefit the hosta’s roots as they expand outward.
- If planting multiple hostas, space them out according to their expected size at maturity. Hostas are adept at filling empty spaces!
- Set the plants in the hole so that the crown (base) of the plant is even with the surrounding soil and any emerging leaf tips are visible at the soil surface.
- If buying potted hostas, plant them at the same soil level as in the pot.
- Gently dampen the soil around the plants and water until the soil is moist to settle the roots.
Types
Most varieties tend to have a spread and height of between 1 and 3 feet, but larger or smaller varieties are readily available. Leaf colors include variegated white, lime green, and blue-green, to name just a few. The texture and shape of hosta leaves are also diverse, ranging from smooth and narrow to ridged and heart-shaped.
Once you start exploring hostas, you’ll find they get rather addictive! From 4-inch miniature hostas to 6-foot-wide giant hostas, there’s a hosta variety to fit any situation from large borders to tiny rock gardens. Here are just a few:
- H. fortunei ‘Aureomarginata’: Deep-green oval leaves accented by a golden edge.
- H. x ‘Blue Cadet’: A small hosta with heart-shaped, bluish leaves. It makes for a nice edging plant. In mid-summer it blooms with mauve-blue flowers.
- For sunnier spots, select plants from the Hosta plantaginea group. These plants also tend to have fragrant flowers in late summer. ‘August Moon’, ‘Honeybells’, and ‘Sum and Substance’ are a few of the varieties in this category.
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Zone is important but so is the microclimate and compass direction. If you are at altitude you might experience some more severe weather than lower areas. And if your sunlight is on the north side, it's negligable. South would be best, west, reasonable. Can you bring the pots indoors, say a dark basement, and give them some moisture through the deepest part of winter? So it's not an easy answer. But these are perennials so they have promise.
We would keep them in the greenhouse and check on them once in a while. If it's prone to get hot, give them some moisture but not enough to freeze them at night.
Over a period of time, the crown may be too deeply set in the soil, what with mulch you may have applied. The general guidance is set the plants in a planting hole with the crown of the plant even with the surrounding soil and the growing tips visible at the soil surface.
Lift them, shake them out, and replant like new entries. See additional guidance above.
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