Oriental Pleasures - Japanese Garden Plants – Hosta

Name – The hosta is also known as the Plantain Lily in the USA, for its banana-like leaves.

Description – Usually grown as a foliage plant, the host has leaves that can be plain green, variegated, blue or grey. Their leaves can be small, large, heart shaped, crinkled or textured and they make superb ground cover plants. Flowers are tall spikes, usually mauve or white in colour, that are attractive but not very showy.

Origin – Hostas originally came from Japan, China, and Korea and were first introduced to Europe in the late 1700s. It’s a plant that adores shade and moist ground, but you need to bear in mind, if you’re growing them for ground cover, that all hostas go dormant in the winter and after a couple of cold nights their leaves will wither and vanish underground – don’t panic, they reappear next year, but remember that you may end up with large patches of bare earth during the cold months. To protect them, cover the area with about three inches of mulch to insulate the roots from the severe cold. In spring, new leaves grow from the roots and the hosta quickly returns to its full glory. These are plants ideal for shaded areas and moist, damp ground, but garden pests such as slugs and snails can leave the leaves looking shredded and even no leaves at all! A sprinkle of animal friendly slug pellets helps, or if you are growing them in containers you can put slug collars on your pots or an even cheaper alternative is to wrap copper wire around the pot because slugs and snails are repelled by the chemicals it contains and hate to crawl over it. Equally, If you grow them in pots, always water them regularly and well, because if the soil dries the plant will soon die.

Japanese hosta photograph by pjbeardsley, used under a creative commons attribution

 

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