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, rugose, 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. and 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. But 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 climes 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.
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