Wisconsin Public Television University Place Garden Expo 2012  Lisa Johnson Hostas and Friends  February 11, 2012 UP686   cc >> All right, welcome to the Garden Expo. Is everybody having a good time? We've got such a great crowd in here today. This is amazing. Wow. I'm Lisa Johnson. I'm from Dane County UW Extension, and I'm the horticultural educator. I run the Master Gardener program in Dane County, and we're coming right up on our classes starting in two weeks. So if your interested in that, see me at the Extension booth today. Shout out to my friend Tina who used to work for Extension back in the misty past a long time ago. So it's good to see her here today too. 

So I'm going to be talking about hostas and their shady friends. And I'm going to go through some annuals, some perennials, and some woody plants that work well with hostas in our area. And hostas, I've got this hosta pin here today to show you that I am, indeed, a true hostaphile. So I am going to be going through about 14 of some of my favorite hostas, and then we'll talk about the friends that work well with them so you know what's coming up. This is a shot, actually, that I took at Rotary Gardens a couple of years ago in their Japanese garden, and for people who say that you can't have color in shade, they are wrong. There's the color right there. If you mix you blue and your yellow hostas, your large and your small hostas, and then thread their friends in between, you can have a plenty colorful shady garden, especially if you add some annuals. Okay, let's see if I can get the remote. Just kind of going through a few hosta combinations that work really well. That one in the center there is Blue Jay. 

A lot of our blue colored hostas don't always hold their blue color all the way through the season. Most of them will turn blue/green or green. But Blue Jay is one of them. Blue Diamond is another one, Brother Ronald, that hold their color for quite some time. And the one up in the right-hand corner there, that is Pineapple Upside Down Cake. You know, hosta people, they make some great plant names, and there's a whole series I'll be telling you about in a minute. But just kind of wanted to show you some combinations there. That's probably June or maybe Remember Me right down in the front there. So you can get a lot of color just by putting your hostas together even without any of their shady friends. Here's another example. 

This is from a place I visited in Iowa, and we've got some ferns and a brunnera there. I don't have a pointer on here, but the plant with the silvery foliage with the green veins. That's a brunnera. I'll go through that one again later too. But you can see you can get a lot of variety. So a little bit about hosta, the plant. And, by the way, if you want to know more about hostas, you might want to consider joining the Hosta Society. They're here at the Garden Expo today. If you go in the front and then you go all the way over to your right, you'll find them along the right-hand wall. They're actually selling some fine hostas today, too. 

So, hostas are not native, of course, to North America. They're from Japan, Korea, and then there's one species in China. All together, 40 different species. Can you imagine seeing these things growing in the wild? Well, in the wild they may grow in Japan on limestone cliffs. They may grow in forested settings. There's one species that's native to one volcano, right around the rim of the volcano. And the Japanese name I'm not going to try and pronounce because I always get it wrong. I can do Latin, but for some reason I haven't mastered the Japanese names of hostas yet. It's on my list. And it's in the lily family, believe it or not. 

If you've ever seen them bloom, which I'm sure you have, they do kind of look like lily flowers. And they're the most popular perennial in the US today. At the time I first put this together there were 5,000 cultivars. Now there are about 7200. But, if you think that day lilies, which have about 30,000 cultivars, we've got a ways to catch up yet. I'm going to be using some of these terms, so I just wanted to give those to you. The crown is the base of the plant. I know it sounds like it should be the top of the plant, but it's the base of the plant. A scape is a flowering stalk. A petiole is the leaf stem. 

And margins are, of course, the edge of the leaf. Substance is a term that you hear a lot when talking about hostas, and what that basically means is there is a film that is on the surface and underside of the leaf. And the thicker that is, the more slug resistant the plant is. Sometimes it's also used, not as correctly, but sometimes used anyway to describe the thickness of the leaf. And finally a sport. A sport is a type of mutation that happens quite often in hostas. A lot of our hostas have come from natural mutations or mutations that have been induced. And so you'll hear me talking about those. So, again, here's substance and sometimes they use the word glaucose, which means kind of whitish/blue waxy, and that can either be on the surface or the underside. And the texture -- means quilted. 

And so that's that seersucker texture that you sometimes will see on hosta leaves. Okay, so on to a few wonderful hostas, and we could have been here until 6:00 tonight listening to me yammer on about different kinds of hostas, but I frugally pushed them back to about 14. So, here's the first one. I wanted to show you a hosta that has this kind of palm print in the center section. We have many different types of patterns, but this is one of them where there's a very wide margin and a very feathery looking center area. Andrew is a fairly large hosta, and it's a fairly slow grower but wonderful if you're willing to wait the four or five years that it takes to get it to maturity. It does have lavender flowers, not white flowers. A lot of people, myself included, sometimes will cut off the flowers because they take away from the general look of the plant, but there are some hostas and some of them that we'll be looking at where the flowers are actually a complement and a highlight of the plant instead of a detriment. This one, Blue Ivory, just got on to the market fairly recently. And you can see it was registered in 2009. 

So a very new hosta but a very, very nice one. Good color. It holds on to it's color well. It's got good substance, so, therefore, good slug resistance. And, while it's not a very tall hosta, it's very dense, and it makes a really nice clump. I've had one in my garden as soon as I saw it hit the market, and so it's been growing only for a couple of years but I've been impressed at it's density and vigor. Blue Mouse Ears, anybody have Blue Mouse Ears? Huh, yep. That one's become very popular, and not only that, but it sported quite a few new varieties. There's now Green Mouse Ears. There's Dancing Mouse. 

There's Confused Mouse. There's Snow Mouse. There's Cat and Mouse. So a bunch of different, sometimes sports and sometimes unrelated ones, but this one also clumps up very well, and this one the flowers look really nice with it. They're a good proportion and scale with the plant and kind of frilly looking, and they're abundant enough and thick enough on the stem that they really make a statement. So I do leave it on these. But this Mouse Ears thing I'm sure is going to continue. Mighty Mouse, that's another one. I've got that one too. I wanted to show you a hosta that had what we call pie-crusting. 

That's that rippling along the edge. Candy Dish, this is a real dish of a hosta. Very thick substance and also very thick leaves. It does have purple petioles on the leaves, but, unfortunately, the leaves bend down a little bit so you can't see the petioles or leaf stems quite as well with that color. I'll show you some later that have red petioles that you can see. But Candy Dish is a really nice addition. It's a foil for some of the more brightly colored plants, but, at the same time, it's a star in its own because of the heavy pie-crusting. There are a number of hostas that have that, and we're seeing more of them as breeding goes forward. Green Piecrust is an older variety that has that. Donahue Piecrust has more oval shaped leaves that have a lot of pie-crusting as well. 

Here's one with the red petioles. There are a number of golden leafed varieties out there now that have golden leaves and bright red petioles. There's one called Strawberry Banana. Fire Island is another one. And you can see, if you look at the leaf right down at the bottom of the screen, you can see they're getting some of that color finally to inch into the actual leaf. So I wouldn't be surprised if in maybe another 5-10 years if we have hostas with a red streak down the middle on the mid-rib and maybe even into the veins a little bit more, and that will be really cool. Fire Island is another kind of medium size hosta, and it doesn't keep quite that brilliant yellow, but it does become a little bit more chartreuse later on in the season, but it's still a stunning hosta. And the lavender flowers I'm not quite so fond of, so I usually cut those off. This one has a little bit thinner substance, so if you have really bad slug problems, you might want to look at a different one, but it's still a very, very fine hosta. This is one of the bigger ones. 

This is descended from Hosta plantaginea, which is the one Chinese species, and this is the plantaginea or the old August lily has fragrant flowers. And they really do have a beautiful sweet fragrance. And I wanted to put this one up here because it's one of the ones that maintains that kind of bright chartreusy color with a white margin. Makes a very nice clump, but it is a fairly large scale clump too. Not as big as some of the giants, but, nevertheless, a good sized one. And this does take half a day of sun if it's morning sun. I don't usually recommend that you put hostas in afternoon sun, but usually quite a few of them, not usually the blue ones, but a number of them can take at least half a day of morning sun. This is another one that will take some sun. Great Expectations. Anybody got that one? That's another gorgeous, gorgeous variety. 

It is slower than molasses in January, though. Takes a while for it to hit maturity, but when it does, definitely worth the wait. And even as a young plant it's very nice. You'll notice that the flower stalks are quite close to the top of the foliage. Sometimes they actually get hidden in the foliage. Some people cut those off. Other people let them remain on there. The picture on the left is more indicative of what it looks like in the spring. So it's got brighter color in the spring, and then the center kind of fades a bit to more of a creamy yellow later on in the season. This is part of what I call the risque series. 

This started with a hosta called Strip Tease that develops a white strip in the center. It's green with a white strip. So Strip Tease has sported I can't tell you how many different hostas, but Hanky Panky is one of them, Risky Business, Obscene Gesture, that's a new one. So there are all these, like I said, hosta people have an interesting sense of humor. So you can almost tell sometimes from the name where the plant came from. There's one that's called August Moon that you may be familiar with, older cultivar that's kind of a chartreusy gold, and it has a sport that is called September Sun, August Moon, September Sun, that has a dark green margin on it. It's kind of fun to do that. If you're interested in that kind of thing, Mark Zilis from Q&Z Nursery put out a tome, and I do mean a tome because it's two or three inches thick, probably three inches, that I bought last year. I believe the Hosta Society had it. Land of the Giants Hosta was here last year too, and they were carrying it as well. 

It's an investment. It's also probably a pretty good weapon being as large as it is, but if you're interested in hosta breeding, hosta breeders, what is a sport of what, hostas in the wild, Japanese names for hostas, it's all in there. And they have some really beautiful color pictures too. So if you're a real hostaphile, you might want to check that out. >> What's the name again? >> It's called The Hostapedia by Mark Zilis, Z-I-L-I-S. So, anyway, that being a lot preface for Gypsy Rose, I really like this one. It almost looks like it's been painted. The center almost looks like it's been painted on. It's so incredibly regular. This one, if you're looking to cover some space, this one will do it. 

It's a great border plant but also good for ground covers. This is another one in that series, and Hanky Panky has got some really interesting variegation You notice that very thin white line between the center, the dark green center, and the chartreuse outer area. As the season goes on, that margin turns to be more of a creamy color. This one is about the same size as Gypsy Rose and, again, was a sport of... [INAUDIBLE] >> Strip Tease. Thank you. Good lord, losing it. Okay. Hosta June, I'll bet a lot of you have this one as well. This one can be a real chameleon depending on the type of light that you have it in. 

It is a medium sized plant, and if you have it in more shade, you'll get more of the blue and green tones. If you have it in more sun, you'll get more of the golden type tones. And so it's kind of fun to play around with. This one also has sported quite a number of fine plants as well. And it will take up to a half day of sun, but keep in mind that you will get more of the gold tones then. If you were looking for the blue and green, keep it in some more shade. This one has got great thickness of leaf, great substance on it, and that will help you in your battles against the slugs because I'm sure that a number of you, as myself and any other hosta grower can tell you, slugs are probably our main enemy. This one almost glows in the dark. Really. I think this slide is maybe a little bright, but nevertheless, this is a hosta Montana variety. 

And hosta Montana has huge, huge leaves. Long, beautiful, elegant leaves and, onstage, has some really beautiful golden and green variegation Lots of streaking into the center. It is not the fastest growing one. I would also say that the substance is, it's good but it's not excellent. Nevertheless, a great plant. It's also sometimes called -- I've heard it referred to. This is one of the miniature. Yes, hostas come in miniatures as well as giants. Some of them you could grow in a teacup if your teacup had drainage in it. So this is one of the smallest ones. 

The very smallest ones are from a species called Hosta venusta, and there are some called, and that one is one of the Korean species. And Hosta venusta has one called, there's one called Thumbelina, Tiny Tears, just very, very tiny hostas. This one's a little bit bigger than that but not much, and it has ones that look fairly similar. Cherish, Cameo, those are all some very nice dwarf hostas. With dwarf hostas like this you have to be a little careful that they don't get totally overtaken by other plants. And also, if you use mulch, sometimes they tend to get buried in the mulch, so watch out for that. As I mentioned, you can grow these in pots. And if you can store the pot somewhere over winter where it won't be subjected to a lot of freeze/thaw, they're hardy to zone 3 so it's tough to kill them. You could pretty much leave them out on the driveway over winter and they'd probably still be okay. Not that I'm recommending that, but they're tough plants. 

I wanted to show you one of the speckled hostas that's out there. This is another one of my favorites. Revolution is part of that series that includes Minute Man, Patriot, Paul Revere, etc, etc. nd this one, I really like that speckling that they have in the center. It's also got a fairly shiny leaf and very acute, pointy tip. Nice habit. It does grow fairly quickly, so it will make a nice mound in a fairly short period of time. And, finally, Sum and Substance, which I'm sure a number of you have as well. I mean, talk about dinner plate sized leaves. These are bigger than dinner. 

These are like, I don't know, place mat sized leaves. And there are even bigger ones still. I didn't put Empress Wu in here. That is the, they're now calling that one the biggest one. It used to be Sum and Substance. And this one has produced a lot of different sports as well. There's Sum Cup-O-Joe. There's Final Summation. There's a whole bunch of Sum cultivars that are out there that have been sports from this plant. So this one is not only huge in the way of leaves, but the flower scapes up to 72 inches are pretty darn tall as well. 

This on takes up a fair amount of real estate, obviously, so if you have a small yard like I do, I don't have this one. But I cast envious eyes on the plants of other people who do have it. This has great slug resistance, and it will take at least half a day of sun as well. Okay, so now we finally get to the hosta shady friends. And of annuals, if you're looking for some colors other than yellow and blue and green and white, we can certainly provide that. There are a number of different begonias that will do very well in shade. The tuberous begonia is probably the most popular. However, I think of it as kind of a diva plant, and the slugs do love it, unfortunately. I like the hiemalis type begonias which have a little bit smaller flower but still very ruffly. That's one there that they're growing in the pot. 

And it makes a nice statement in the garden next to hostas. I'm going to be talking about astilbes later, but I'll also point those out. One of the things in shade gardens that we do because we can't necessarily get quite as much color into the mix is we grow a lot of different textures next to each other to provide contrast. So that's something that lacy filigreed foliage such as astilbes can do. We've also got a coral bell in there next to the hosta towards the back that's probably caramel coral bell, and those do very nicely in partial shade. They won't take deep shade, but they will take partial shade. The begonias, on the other hand, will take, I wouldn't say real deep shade, but they will take light, they will take moderate, and they will take even slightly more than moderate shade. Caladiums as well, now these will take maybe a quarter day of morning sun. Do not put them in afternoon sun or they will burn. But, again, if you're looking for a blast of color, they are absolutely spectacular next to hostas or next to astilbes or other filigreed type plants. 

So I think that, I'm not going to hazard a guess at which hosta that is. Looks like it could be June, but I'm not sure. It might be Gold Standard as well. Hard to tell sometimes. Now you can see the hosta at the right looks like it has suffered a little bit of rabbit feeding there, I think. But, yeah, rabbits do like hostas. Deer like hostas. But there are some rather nasty, smelly things that you can spray on your hostas, if necessary, to repel those critters. Coleus, and, boy, the coleus breeding has just gone nuts. We now have sun coleus as well as shade coleus. 

And I'm sure a lot of you are aware of those. The so-called sun coleus will also do well in light shade to medium shade. Not deep shade. They tend to lose their color there, but if you have your hostas in light shade, you can also get a whole lot of color out of the foliage of the coleus. And I happen to really like coleus as well, and it's so wonderful. Unlike a flower, an actual flower, the leaves will provide that color all season long. You plop them in the ground, you keep them watered, and they do great and wonderful things. Here's coleus and some of the begonias that I mentioned together with hostas. And right down in the front we've got a brunnera as well. The plant in the back by the pagoda, the stone pagoda, is a ligularia and those also can provide quite a nice contrast with their dark purple leaves. 

Impatiens, of course, that's a natural. A lot of people plant impatiens along with their hostas and it works wonderfully. The get along quite well because they both enjoy the same sorts of moisture and, of course, light conditions. Okay, moving on to perennials. How am I doing on time here? I'm doing okay. Alright. This is dwarf goatsbeard. No, it's not an astilbe. It looks like an astilbe but it's not. And this particular genus of plants, you have some that are four feet tall or even five feet tall. 

You have some that are a couple of feet tall, and then you have this dwarf. I happen to like the dwarf best in conjunction with hostas because you get the flowers at the same level as the hosta leaves. Unless, of course, you're talking Sum and Substance. Then maybe you want to look into some of those taller Aruncus or goatsbeard plants. Most of them have white flowers. A couple of them, the flowers, when they're on their way out, will start to fade into kind of a light pinkish tone, but for the most part you're looking at white. The Aruncus aethusifolius or the dwarf goatsbeard, nice thick clump. It makes a good border on its own if you would not want to use hostas in some place as a border. And right next to it, not the grass, but the silvery foliage plant, that is a Lamiastrum, which is called Herman's Pride. Now don't get the Lamiastrum that's Golden Archangel because it will run rampant all over your yard and probably your neighbor's yard and maybe even your neighbor's neighbor's yard. 

So stay away from that one. But the Herman's Pride makes a very nice little clump and gives you lemon yellow flowers to boot. So very, very nice plant. We do have some grasses, and, actually, I'm going to go back a slide. I believe that one is also a type of Hakonechloa, which I'm going to go to in this next slide, the Japanese forest grass. The white striped one, they've got a new one out called Fubuki that has that kind of whitish streaking on it. Were this more of a close-up picture, you would be able to see that this Hakonechloa has a green stripe in the middle and then gold foliage the rest of the way. If you're looking for movement in the garden, this shifts and sways around with every little breeze. Wonderful plant. Yeah? [INAUDIBLE] >> Five, that is zone 5, sorry. 

Well, the way global warming is going, you may be in zone 5 soon. If you haven't looked at the new USDA chart, a lot of us here in the southern part of the state are now in zone 5 5A at least, not necessarily 5B. Kind of interesting how that's working out. A couple different kinds of wild ginger. We have on the left, that shiny green leaf is European wild ginger. Gorgeous little plant. We have out own native wild ginger as well. It's not a shiny leaf. It's a big heart-shaped leaf, but if you've got dry shade, and especially under something like a silver maple that's such a water pig, you might want to try the native wild ginger. It does spread in a clump, but it's great for dry shade. 

Hostas will do okay in dry shade, but they often will be stunted. Your Sum and Substance might not be of quite the stature that it would be with decent moisture. Mm-hmm. >> I planted a clump of -- last summer. Something came by, I don't know if it was a rabbit or what, but it sheered it off. >> Oh, no. >> Left about an inch or so. Do you think it will come back? >> It might. I'm sorry to hear that. They're not cheap either. 

I feel for you. You might want to try spraying it with a rabbit repellent this year. They do enjoy good moisture, so if you have that plant in dry shade, it won't do very well. >> It's moist. >> Oh, that's good. Okay. If it just comes back now. Oh, I forgot to mention the ginger on the right. Way down in the right-hand corner there. That's Asarum splendens and that one has kind of silvery model, shiny sort of semi-evergreen leaves. 

Both of those are somewhat or semi-evergreen plants. So they stay somewhat green if you could find them under the snow in the winter. They'll still put out new green leaves in spring, but don't take off the old leaves until they start to really look tattered. Particularly, you want to wait until the new leaves come in. Astilbe, of course, a natural. I love the kind of star-shaped inflorescence and the filigreed leaves. What a nice textural contrast. Now, one thing about astilbes is that you can grow astilbes in sun as long as they have enough moisture. And astilbes are usually kind of billed as a shade plant. They really don't like a whole lot of shade, but they will take light shade. 

Brunnera I've mentioned a couple of times here. That's the Siberian Forget-Me-Not is the common name for that. We've got a bunch of cultivars out there now. There's one called Looking Glass that is all silver leaf. We've got a new one called King's Ransom that has some silver overlay but also some gold as well. There was one that was bred here in Madison that's called Diane's Gold. It came from a mutation in a garden on the west side, and that's a very nice plant as well. And you can also see, if you look to the photo on the left, just above and to the left of the brunnera, we have another plant. I kind of hesitate to recommend them because they have some weedy forms that are a little invasive. But we do have, that's persicaria and we do have some more well-behaved ornamental forms. 

They have been a little bit iffy, though, here in the Madison area. And the brunnera, I should have been adding this, for folks who are not in zone 5, this is another zone 5 plant. Now, the astilbes, they're quite hardy. So zone 4 is usually fine for those. Corydalis, in England this is a weed. Here we have it seed somewhat, but it tends to be so short lived that it's really not a problem. Again, nice lacy texture. This is another zone 5 plant. Although, I have heard of it surviving in protected areas in zone 4B. Nice texture as well as flower color on that one. 

And, of course, the good old fashioned bleeding heart. I love them and have had those for years. The white flowered version is lovely as well, and the Dicentra formosa, which is in this picture, eximia or formosa. They look very similar both in color and in flower. And those are nice as well. Again, you get that wonderful textural contrast. Ferns, we have ferns of all kinds. We have native ferns like the maidenhair fern which is on the right-hand side of the screen, kind of at the bottom. And that one is quite hardy. It's either zone 3 or 4. 

I can't remember which. We have the Japanese painted fern in the center panel there with the purple foliage. We have the autumn fern over there on the left. That's the spring foliage and new foliage on that one. The two on the left, or the center and the left panel, those are zone 5. So those are probably not going to work for you up north. Coral bells, everybody probably has tried some of the beautiful new coral bells. A guy named Dan Heims from Terra Nova Nurseries led the explosion of breeding of these particular plants. And, as you know, we have them in gold, we have them in peach, we have them in pink, purple, silver variegation. You can go nuts. 

And I typically do. I'm a big fan of coral bells. And right behind it, again, is one of those brunnera. And these guys will take light shade. They will get kind of thin if you put them in medium shade. They will also, some of them take at least half a day of sun, preferably morning sun. Some of them will take all-day sun. So there's quite a bit of variation in that. Lamium, not to be confused with Lamiastrum, although they are both related and they're both in the mint family. This is a ground cover plant. 

And I know that if you've ever grown the spearmint or peppermint, you know that it is only to be grown in a pot, otherwise, again, it will invade your yard and your neighbor's yard and so on. This is a little bit more refined, although I have seen it run out into the yard occasionally, escaping from the garden border. But it does make a great under-planting for hostas. That kind of sea of silver or silver splashed foliage is really nice, and the flowers come in a variety of colors usually in the pink, purple, and white ranges. There's some with more magenta flowers too. And you can get the Lamium in gold foliage as well. Our native Virginia bluebell. Okay, that one is going to be hardy for you up there in zone 4 for sure. And the one problem with it is that it does go dormant towards the middle or end of July. So you may want to plan for that and have an annual ready to plop in its place so you don't have a hole in the garden, but gorgeous, gorgeous contrast in the spring and early summer months. 

[INAUDIBLE] >> No idea. It might be Gold Standard. Anybody here from the Hosta Society want to hazard a guess at that one? It looks, it's early in the season too, so that one might be June. Hard to tell. Sorry. Jacob's Ladder. This is a variegated one that came out a few years ago called Stairway to Heaven. Our native, though, is just as fine a plant. Although, it doesn't have the variegation. And there's that Hakonechloa grass again, and Pulmonaria lungwort. 

That's one of the earliest plants to bloom in the spring. Usually the flowers are either pink turning to blue or blue turning to pink. Here's some more examples. The one in the middle up at the top is a new called Silver Bouquet. Down in the far right-hand corner, that one is Excalibur which tends to be a little bit more of a robust plant, not quite as refined. The one up in the right-hand corner is Dark Vader. I love that name. And, as you can see, not only do you get the flower color but you get the neat spotted foliage or silvered foliage. Tiarella or foamflowers, those are another of my favorites. Sorry, they are zone 5. 

Dan Heims, again, has been doing tones of breeding with these. They don't like, excuse me, they don't like real dry shade, but they are a wonderful texture and color contrast. Oh, and they will do okay under black walnuts if you're afflicted with black walnuts. Toad Lily is another wonderful, wonderful shade plant. And I could have included tons more but time presses. The Toad Lilies are usually later bloomers. There are some species that bloom in August but others that bloom in September or October. So be sure to site the later bloomer ones where they're protected from early fall frost. Finally, a couple of woody plants. I'm very fond of Japanese maples. 

They are marginally hardy here. If you decide to try on, do try and put it in a protected area. Most of them are zone 5, 5B, 6A, etc. ut look at that. What more could you want? What a beautiful color. Dwarf Hemlocks, if you've got deer, don't bother because deer love them. But nice textural contrast again. The Chamaecyparis are generally zone 5, and we have some that are more green, some that are more gold. We've got short, we've got tall. I do recommend trying them, but most of them will not take winter sun so you need to stick a bushel basket over them for the winter. 

And, finally, hydrangeas. Again, breeding in hydrangeas has gone nuts, and so we have lots of shade hydrangeas to choose from as well as sun hydrangeas. And rhododendrons, of course. What would we do without rhododendrons? Even in our northern climbs we can grow some rhododendrons here. You do have to check the hardiness zones, and they do need acid soil, of course, and halfway decent drainage. Okay, so I think we have about three minutes left for questions. >> Is there a recommended technique for dividing hostas? >> A recommended technique. There are two ways that you can divide hostas, and one of them is by digging the whole thing up and you try and get your shovel in between the crowns as they come up so that you're not dividing it in the middle. Most people like to do division in the early spring so you don't have leaves flapping around in your face, but you certainly can do it in the spring, in the summer. You can even do it in the fall, but spring is the recommended time. 

The other way to do it is just to carve off a piece of the outside kind of bordering. Now that will leave you with a goofy looking plant for the rest of the season, but sometimes it's the easiest thing to do. Any others? How many minutes do I have now, Tina? >> A couple minutes. >> Couple minutes. Okay, cool. Any other questions? [INAUDIBLE] >> Okay, I bet it's going to be a slug question. That's exactly right. Oh, gee. >> What do you do to deter them? >> How do you deter slugs? Boy, I wish we had a magic bullet for slugs. There are a number of different techniques that vary in how well they work. 

One thing you can do if you have hostas that have upright leaves, not ones that touch the ground, is you can sprinkle Diatomaceous Earth around the base of the hosta. If you have hostas, though, where the leaves touch the ground, it doesn't work because the slugs will go right up on to the leaf. Some people try not using mulch around the hostas, but then you get a lot of dirt splashed up on them when it rains. So there's kind of a draw back there. There are some iron phosphate pellets. One brand is Escargot, another is Sluggo. I have heard, though, there's supposed to be a less toxic option to the metaldehyde. Yeah. I think that's right. There are some poison pellet products, and iron phosphate is supposed to be somewhat less toxic, but I've also heard that it can be a problem for certain kinds of wildlife. 

So check into that if you have pets that tend to eat things in your garden, or small children. Other than that, some people put out slug traps with beer. Other people go and hunt them with a flashlight in the dark of night and pull them off. Other people do unspeakable things to them that we won't go into. So, that's my slug. Yes? [INAUDIBLE] The hostas that are on your sheet, they had a fragrant bouquet and Sum and Substance for sale today. >> Yes. A fragrant bouquet and Sum and Substance were available at the hosta booth. I'm not going to say they still are, but they might be. And I do recommend them as very good cultivars. 

>> One more. >> One more short question. No? Okay. Well, thank you. [APPLAUSE]