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When should you plant hostas


When to Plant Hostas

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Q: I’m looking to upgrade my landscape soon, and easy-care hostas are right up my alley. But I don’t want to mistakenly plant them at the wrong time. Can you tell me when to plant hostas for the best results?

A. Hostas are a popular landscaping plant for good reason. These hardy perennials require little maintenance and, despite not being as colorful as other garden marvels, leafy hostas put on a show of their own. In gardens across growing zones, hostas provide a burst of tropical-like foliage and don’t require an expert’s green thumb to grow.

So when should you plant hostas in the garden? Here’s what you need to know to grow these lush, leafy plants.

Timing isn’t too critical.

Hostas are extremely easy to grow, so while there is technically an ideal time to plant, timing isn’t entirely critical overall. If a friend divides and shares a hosta plant with you, there’s no need to fret. Planting divided hostas anytime during the growing season is doable.

If you decide to divide a hosta plant of your own, it’s best to wait until it has reached maturity—typically after about 5 years. Dig deeply to uproot the entire plant and carefully separate the roots into small sections for replanting. Remember, these plants need plenty of moisture. Make sure to water deeply and frequently, especially during dry periods.

Related: Easy Ground Covers: 7 Varieties to Enhance Any Landscape

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In spring, you can plant bare-root or potted hosta plants.

While it’s OK to plant hostas throughout the growing season, you’ll get the best results if you plant right before the summer months. In the early spring, the weather is cooler and less likely to stress newly planted hostas. There’s also usually more rain during this period, which thirsty hostas thrive on.

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As long as the ground is workable, you can plant bare-root or potted hosta plants. If planting potted hostas, make sure to place them as deep in the new soil as they are inside the container in which they came.

Related: 25 Ways to Beautify Your Yard Without Planting a Thing

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August is also an ideal time to plant hostas almost anywhere in the U.S.

In cooler regions, early August is an excellent time for planting hostas. However, those in the southern U.S. should wait until the tail end of the month to avoid lengthy exposure to scorching hot weather. Remember, because it’s still warm in August, hosta plants will need regular watering to establish a healthy root system.

In fall, you should use potted hostas.

Like the spring, early fall is an ideal period for planting hostas. You might even have success planting in the late autumn if you live in a warmer growing zone.

At this time of year, stick with potted hostas instead of bare-root plants. Why? Because container-grown plants have had ample time to produce healthy roots, so they are strong enough to sustain a late-season planting. Plant hostas several weeks before the average first frost date to ensure they have enough time to settle into their new home.

Photo: istockphoto.com

Late-planted hostas might rot over the winter.

The longer you wait to plant, the less time your hostas have to put out new roots. Try not to cut it too close. Waiting too long to plant in the fall can leave hostas susceptible to winter cycles of thawing and freezing. To prevent plants from rotting and dying over the winter, make sure to water them thoroughly before the first frost. Also, add plenty of mulch around the plants to help keep them insulated.

How to: How To: Protect Plants from Frost

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for a show of verdant foliage |

(Image credit: Getty Images)

They’re must-have plants for shade gardens, but what about when to plant hostas to enjoy their impressive foliage?

Hostas (plantain lilies) have sizeable leaves that inject woodland borders with verdant structure in spring, summer, and fall, and along with knowhow about how to plant hostas, the detail of when to plant them is essential.

Our guide has the answers you need to enjoy their unique, lush foliage in your flower bed ideas, along with advice from the experts.

When to plant hostas

The gorgeous green of hostas is welcome in a backyard, and some gardeners fall deeply for them, gradually building up a collection of different leaf textures, shapes, colors, and sizes, which look stunning growing side by side in a tapestry of green. 

As for when to plant hostas? Spring is a great time to get hostas in the ground. But they also respond well to being planted in the fall. 

‘Although they will survive almost anywhere, they look best, and do better, in partial shade, in cool well-fed soil, where, once established, many will produce immense leaves, totally weedproof,’ wrote the late great gardener Beth Chatto, who grew many hostas in her famous UK gardens . They are excellent shade plants and can also be grown under tree canopies as woodland plants.

Among the 6,000 different cultivars available, there are leaves in every shade of green, as well as gold, cream, and blue. Some leaves are heart-shaped; some rounded; some lanceolate. They display lovely veining or puckering or they are smooth. They skim 3in (8cm) or they balloon to 3ft (90cm). Pale flowers – which are produced at different times in summer or fall, depending on the species – bloom above them on stalks that reach between 6in (30cm) and 6ft (1.8m).

When it the best time to plant hostas?

While the answer to when to plant hostas is that it is flexible, there is an optimum time to do so.

‘Hostas can be planted at any time of year,’ explains Paul Harris, owner of specialist hosta nursery Brookfield Plants  in Kent, UK, ‘but spring is the ideal time to plant hostas with the whole growing season ahead to enjoy the beautiful foliage.’ 

If possible, avoid planting in summer, when temperatures can be high; in spells of hot, dry weather in spring or fall; or when the ground is frozen or waterlogged in winter.  

‘Preferable planting times for all hostas are spring and fall,’ says James Coutts, who holds a UK national collection of Hosta plantaginea (fragrant plantain lily). ‘Spring because the roots are getting going in terms of growth. It is best to avoid planting amid the very hot weather of mid-summer. That said, with careful positioning and monitoring of watering, it can still be done. Fall is also a good season, having avoided the heat of summer, and the plants will get the benefit of warm soil to set root before winter.’ 

What month is best to plant hostas?

The best month to plant hostas will depend on weather and soil conditions. Steer clear of planting in the hot temperatures of the summer months or the months of winter when the ground is frozen or waterlogged. As for spring and fall months, these could all prove possibilities, but don’t plant if there’s a spell of hot, dry weather.

When should I buy hostas?

As a rule, it’s best to buy and plant hostas in spring or fall. Buying and planting them in summer isn’t out of the question, but in that case they need to be put in the right location and careful attention paid to watering.

Rachel is senior content editor, and writes and commissions gardening content for homesandgardens.com, Homes & Gardens magazine, and its sister titles Period Living Magazine and Country Homes & Interiors. She has written for lifestyle magazines for many years, with a particular focus on gardening, historic houses and arts and crafts, but started out her journalism career in BBC radio, where she enjoyed reporting on and writing programme scripts for all manner of stories. Rachel then moved into regional lifestyle magazines, where the topics she wrote about, and people she interviewed, were as varied and eclectic as they were on radio. Always harboring a passion for homes and gardens, she jumped at the opportunity to work on The English Home and The English Garden magazines for a number of years, before joining the Period Living team, then the wider Homes & Gardens team, specializing in gardens.

How to grow a hosta? - Gardeners and gardeners

In Western Europe and America, hosta is one of the most popular among other ornamental rhizomatous perennials. There is not a single landscape composition, an alpine hill or just a large flower bed where the hosta would not be grown.

To date, more than 3.5 thousand of its varieties have been created in the world. In these plants, absolutely stunning in their decorative effect, all the beauty is concentrated in the leaves. What only you will not meet - both in form and in color.

They can be round, heart-shaped, long and narrow, spreading and looking straight up. Large leaves are very fashionable - corrugated or with wavy edges.

Most hostas are variegated. The colors of the sheet itself and the drawings on them amaze with the variety and quirkiness of forms. Blue, bright blue, dark green, orange, snow white and gold leaves are decorated with white, yellow, green, emerald, orange, cream, white and gold border or tattoo.

The most popular today are colorful variegated leaves, mottled with light strokes, stripes or spots. From them, compositions that are simply stunning in their beauty are created, from which it is simply impossible to take your eyes off.

Hosta's popularity is also explained by the fact that it is one of the most unpretentious and shade-tolerant perennial ornamental plants, which requires almost no care and can grow perfectly in one place for more than 30 years.

In this article, we will tell you how to properly grow a hosta on your site and how to use it to create a picturesque bright corner in the most shady places in the garden.

WHEN THE GROWING OF KHOSTA STARTED

In the Buddhist chronicles, the host is mentioned at the beginning of our era. It grows wild in Japan, China, Korea and the Far East of our country. As a cultivated plant, it began to be used in Japan at the end of the 17th century.

By the way, it is in Japan that the hosta is considered sacred. It is with its leaves that the sacred temples and Buddha statues are decorated for the holidays.

Hosta came to Europe only in the middle of the 19th century. Until that time, Japan had a law prohibiting the export of a sacred plant outside the country. Its first copies were brought to Holland, England and France to replenish the collections of the main botanical gardens of these countries.

Gradually, collectors and biologists began to multiply it. The spectacular plant quickly spread to the gardens of the local nobility, and from there to all countries. It turned out to be so easy to propagate and grow the hosta that many amateur gardeners took advantage of it.

The variegated hosta with large glossy leaves was brought to our country from Europe by soldiers and officers after the end of the Great Patriotic War. And from the forties of the last century, the victorious march of this wonderful plant began in all corners of the Soviet Union.

Spectacular, unpretentious hosta was very liked by our breeders, and they were actively involved in the creation of its new, wonderfully beautiful varieties.

HOW TO GROW HOSTA CORRECTLY

Designers call the hosta the “queen of shady gardens”. She really loves partial shade and diffused lighting. Depending on the color of the leaves, a place for planting is also chosen.

For example, blue and blue hostas are planted in full shade, then their color will be brighter, golden yellow and variegated hostas require more sun, so they choose places with diffused sunlight. But under direct sunlight, the host is never planted.

Hostas need very fertile, rich in organic matter, loose, light and slightly acidic soils (pH 6.0 - 6.5). In nature, they grow in the floodplains of rivers, along the banks of streams. But they also do well on rocky soils. Therefore, this plant takes root perfectly on an alpine hill.

Hosta is not afraid of winter frosts and short-term drought.

Hostas are best planted in spring, mid-May, when the spring frosts are over. Rhizomes are planted in holes, deepening the root neck by 3 cm. Between plants, 50–60 cm are left. Plantings are watered abundantly and mulched with straw, sawdust or peat chips with a layer of 5 cm.

Rhizomes grow rapidly, so every 7-8 years they are divided. It is done like this. The bushes are dug up, cleared of the ground and cut into 3-4 divisions with a sharp shovel, which are immediately planted in a permanent place.

Plants are fed twice per season. In the spring they are given nitrogen nutrition (compost or rotted manure is brought in), and in the fall - phosphorus-potassium (some kind of ready-made mineral complex for autumn fertilizer of ornamental crops).

Before the onset of winter, the entire above-ground part is carefully cut off almost at ground level. The hosta does not need a warm shelter, but in order to protect it from the harsh cold of a snowless winter, it is advisable to mulch the roots with fallen leaves from above with a layer of 15 cm. Hosta is considered a plant that creates a background for brighter flowering perennials. It looks very beautiful with astilbes, daylilies, peonies, phloxes, bodan, Japanese irises.

HOSTA IS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WHEN YOU GROW IT

We offer you the most fashionable and beautiful hostas from the variety of varieties.

Orange marmalade - with orange leaves, gold border around the edges and a white spot in the center.

White feathers - with raised narrow leaves - white, mottled with bright green stripes.

Kabiton - with narrow golden leaves bordered with emerald green border around the edges.

Albamarginata - has large oval emerald green leaves with a white border.

Titani - it has large round dark green leaves with a golden-greenish border.

Omega - its wrinkled iridescent leaves change color from light green to gold.

Captain's Adventure - has large tricolor leaves (golden green with a white border around the edge).

Ivory Coast Glossy bluish-green leaves with a golden border.

Big boy is a giant variety with huge heart-shaped ribbed golden-green leaves.

Blue Angel - a variety with bright blue shiny leaves.

Empress Wu is the largest hosta with huge bright green leaves and a dark pattern in the middle.

Free Wind - the most beautiful variegated hosta with white dashed leaves and a maple leaf tattoo in the middle.

Guacamole - a variety with large, emerald green leaves and a bright golden blur in the middle.

Gold Standard - It has bright golden leaves that are similar in texture to a waffle towel.

Media Variety - leaves are strongly wavy, dark green with a white pattern in the center.

Giant's Ear Very large, dense bright green leaves with a glossy finish.

Where the rainbow ends is a medium-sized variegated variety with streaked leaves in all shades from malachite to golden green.

Canadian blue is a medium-sized hosta with bright light blue leaves.

Full bowl - leaves of this variety are creamy gold on the edges and bluish green in the middle.

All these varieties are amazingly beautiful, and we hope that you will definitely choose the ones that suit you best. And hosta is very easy to grow. Even a novice gardener can do it!

Planting hosta outdoors in spring and autumn: care and cultivation rules

Hosta is one of the few rhizomatous plants that are especially valued for the beauty of the leaves, not the flowers. Moreover, as soon as it is not called - both a function and a giant plantain!

In order for the flower, amazing in its variety of shapes and colors of foliage, not to suffer from stress and give the joy of admiring itself for a long time, it is necessary to be puzzled by the right choice of a seedling, timely and competent planting, as well as careful care for it in the open field.

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