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Hostas - translucent
mark-thorpe84
Posts: 7
Hi all,
I’m only on year 2 of gardening so excuse the rookie mistake from last year…
I have 4 hostas (wide brim) across 2 planters - all planted July last year, and all fine then bar a little nibble from
the slugs. This year they’ve doubled in size as expected but many of the leaves are going see through. Reading up on this all I can find is that it’s a deficiency of some sort so I’ve added some slow release feed, and I’m confident it’s not water/root rot etc.
The tags say full sun, but RHS says part shade. Plus, it’s early in the summer too so I’d hope it wasn’t the sun (they were like this in early May). That said, I have 2 hosta ‘patriots’ in the same planters which seem totally fine.
in parallel, I’ve just checked the tags on 4 ferns in the same planters which have all grown back but crisp at the corners - which id assumed was sun…but as the tags say full sun, I’m wondering whether there something else going on with these that’s also impacting some of the Hostas?
Last hunch…the planters (30cm wide by metres long) are pretty well congested now they’re in year 2. Could it be there isn’t space and some plants are suffering? The salvias and alliums are doing great!
I have 4 hostas (wide brim) across 2 planters - all planted July last year, and all fine then bar a little nibble from
the slugs. This year they’ve doubled in size as expected but many of the leaves are going see through. Reading up on this all I can find is that it’s a deficiency of some sort so I’ve added some slow release feed, and I’m confident it’s not water/root rot etc.
The tags say full sun, but RHS says part shade. Plus, it’s early in the summer too so I’d hope it wasn’t the sun (they were like this in early May). That said, I have 2 hosta ‘patriots’ in the same planters which seem totally fine.
in parallel, I’ve just checked the tags on 4 ferns in the same planters which have all grown back but crisp at the corners - which id assumed was sun…but as the tags say full sun, I’m wondering whether there something else going on with these that’s also impacting some of the Hostas?
Last hunch…the planters (30cm wide by metres long) are pretty well congested now they’re in year 2. Could it be there isn’t space and some plants are suffering? The salvias and alliums are doing great!
0
Posts
Here you go - closeup to show the light/translucent areas, and zoomed out just for context on how chocca the planters have become year on year (if relevant).
Hostas and most ferns (what ferns do you have?) will want wet shade. I suspect they've got dry full sun in that location - certainly the brown fronds would indicate under watering. What is in the planters? If just garden soil then could be very free draining so becomes very dry. You will also need to water them unless it rains very heavily, assume rain doesn't fall on containers.
Sun/dry soil was one of my worries - the soil. In these planters I used a mix of the rubbish available in the garden which is quite clay-like (I know nowadays this is bad). I’d mulched and added compost In spring but what’s there underneith is still there I guess - and gravel at the bottom for drainage. I’d started regular watering a few days ago as it’s been very dry lately.
Looking at the other planter, the Hostas are much healthier in general - that planter gets less sun so perhaps dries out less, to your point.
I’ve just planted a few Hostas in a 3rd planter - better mix, better spacing - so hopefully learning from my year 1 mistakes 😊
There are also many ferns happy in dry soil, eg Dryopteris, it's in the name.
When you don't even know who's in the team
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