Hi Verdun, the hostas tend to get both sun and shade as the theatre is near the house wall - so far they all thrive on it. You are right that the ones with pale variegations such as Fire and Ice and Patriot like a bit more shade than say Devon Green, which has to be one of my favourites. I think, as the dear late wonderful Christopher Lloyd said when asked what his favourite flower was 'fthe one I am looking at at the moment!'. I love all my hostas, both the huge such as Blue Angel and the tiny such as Mouse Ears - I dare not buy any more or we might have to move!! I no longer definitely know the names of all of mine as the labels have, with the help of blackbirds - disappeared over the years. What is it with blackbirds and labels?
Mine only get fed once a year when the whole garden gets a dose of pelleted organic chicken manure. They rely for the most part on rainfall for watering, though there has been the odd accasion when I have had to help that out - tho' not recently. All are top dressed with gravel, mostly because it looks nice and makes it easier to get the weeds out. Otherwise they are left alone, repotted when their pots break, either through frost or sheer root pressure. I just admire them often and leave them to get on with it - and they do.
I have Sum and Substance, mainly because snails leave well alone and it's in the ground, as well as a large blue Halcyon (not as resistant) and 2 smaller bluish ones whose names I forget...
My hostas are riddled with huge snails! I have tried slug & snail repellent, but nothing seems to work. The only way to clear them is to pick them out by hand, which takes ages. Any tips?
If you use pellets thickly they actually encourage more slugs - more come for the free goodies, but none get enough to actually kill them, so you end up in a worse state than before. As welshonion says, use sparingly, and use the iron based ones, called growing success, they are as good as the others at killling slugs, but harm no other wild life. Better yet, put a collar of copper arpund you lovely Fire and Ice hosta, they hate that. I have that hosta, it does not get enormous but does thicken up - it is lovely now.
Hi Katy - after battling the slug for ages, I decided to only get hostas which are mollusc resistant (yes, they do exist!) when I buy new hostas. Such as Sum and Substance - any hosta with very thick, corrugated, almost rubbery leaves are usually tougher than fine leaved, tender varieties which moluscs love to munch on.
Agree with the slug pellet debate - I hate the stuff and this year have cut out all pesticides from my garden as I want to help the bees as much as I can.
This means finding organic alternatives - copper tape I've never tried, as my hostas are mainly in the ground. What worked very well was watering the ground with slug nematodes (microscopic worms) which parasitise the slugs and destroy the, I haven't a slug in sight now since beginning of April. The downside is that to be rally effective it has to be done ideally Spring and then again in Autumn, as once the slugs have been killed off, the nematodes run out of food and die off themselves. Best to do a dose before the Winter too so they don't get a foothold then either. Soil has to be a certain night time temperature for nematodes though and be aware that they have a short shelf life of only a fortnight or so in which they have to be used - I but mine (called Nemaslug) online from Amazon as it's the cheapest I've found.
Slugs bury in the ground and come up at night, which is why the nematodes work so well on them.
Snails are another matter! I use the smallest amount of ferrous pellets I can get away with to control them. Any really tender hosta goes in a pot and generally raised off the ground as much as possible.
Agree with keeping tender hostas in pots, in fact all of mine are in pots. Each pot has a collar of copper tape around it. Sometimes slugs will climb up the wall and drop into pots, or the leaves drape over the sides so they get up those, but on the whole it has reduced the problems to manageable size. The copper gives out a tiny electrical charge which they will not cross - I have the idea it works for snails too as they are soft bodied underneath so I assume they would get shocked too.
The very big disgusting slugs are in fact our friends, they live on small slugs, the little ones that hide under ground, and which devastate our plants. So although they may look awful, they are not the ones you need to get rid of to protect your hostas.
Posts
Hi Verdun, the hostas tend to get both sun and shade as the theatre is near the house wall - so far they all thrive on it. You are right that the ones with pale variegations such as Fire and Ice and Patriot like a bit more shade than say Devon Green, which has to be one of my favourites. I think, as the dear late wonderful Christopher Lloyd said when asked what his favourite flower was 'fthe one I am looking at at the moment!'. I love all my hostas, both the huge such as Blue Angel and the tiny such as Mouse Ears - I dare not buy any more or we might have to move!! I no longer definitely know the names of all of mine as the labels have, with the help of blackbirds - disappeared over the years. What is it with blackbirds and labels?
Mine only get fed once a year when the whole garden gets a dose of pelleted organic chicken manure. They rely for the most part on rainfall for watering, though there has been the odd accasion when I have had to help that out - tho' not recently. All are top dressed with gravel, mostly because it looks nice and makes it easier to get the weeds out. Otherwise they are left alone, repotted when their pots break, either through frost or sheer root pressure. I just admire them often and leave them to get on with it - and they do.
Hi Verdun, I saw a White Wonder the other day and it was definitel weird! Quite eye-catching though.
Mouse ears is so sweet - was considering that one maybe for next year as I have way too much stuff this year
Halcyon is a lovely blue hosta - real steely blue, if you know what I mean, but I also love this one:
http://www.plantsforshade.co.uk/acatalog/Hosta.html
which is very blue as well.
I have Sum and Substance, mainly because snails leave well alone and it's in the ground, as well as a large blue Halcyon (not as resistant) and 2 smaller bluish ones whose names I forget...
hi all
i have just got my plants for a shady bit of my garden one plant was a hosta
'Fire and Ice' and is really lovely cant wate for it to get bigger.P.S slug pellets are gone of plant lol
I wish I were rich enough to use slug pellets with such abandon. You are only supposed to sprinkle them sparingly. With inches between each one.
If you use pellets thickly they actually encourage more slugs - more come for the free goodies, but none get enough to actually kill them, so you end up in a worse state than before. As welshonion says, use sparingly, and use the iron based ones, called growing success, they are as good as the others at killling slugs, but harm no other wild life. Better yet, put a collar of copper arpund you lovely Fire and Ice hosta, they hate that. I have that hosta, it does not get enormous but does thicken up - it is lovely now.
Hi Katy - after battling the slug for ages, I decided to only get hostas which are mollusc resistant (yes, they do exist!) when I buy new hostas. Such as Sum and Substance - any hosta with very thick, corrugated, almost rubbery leaves are usually tougher than fine leaved, tender varieties which moluscs love to munch on.
Agree with the slug pellet debate - I hate the stuff and this year have cut out all pesticides from my garden as I want to help the bees as much as I can.
This means finding organic alternatives - copper tape I've never tried, as my hostas are mainly in the ground. What worked very well was watering the ground with slug nematodes (microscopic worms) which parasitise the slugs and destroy the, I haven't a slug in sight now since beginning of April. The downside is that to be rally effective it has to be done ideally Spring and then again in Autumn, as once the slugs have been killed off, the nematodes run out of food and die off themselves. Best to do a dose before the Winter too so they don't get a foothold then either. Soil has to be a certain night time temperature for nematodes though and be aware that they have a short shelf life of only a fortnight or so in which they have to be used - I but mine (called Nemaslug) online from Amazon as it's the cheapest I've found.
Slugs bury in the ground and come up at night, which is why the nematodes work so well on them.
Snails are another matter! I use the smallest amount of ferrous pellets I can get away with to control them. Any really tender hosta goes in a pot and generally raised off the ground as much as possible.
Hope this helps.
Which types do you have?
Agree with keeping tender hostas in pots, in fact all of mine are in pots. Each pot has a collar of copper tape around it. Sometimes slugs will climb up the wall and drop into pots, or the leaves drape over the sides so they get up those, but on the whole it has reduced the problems to manageable size. The copper gives out a tiny electrical charge which they will not cross - I have the idea it works for snails too as they are soft bodied underneath so I assume they would get shocked too.
The very big disgusting slugs are in fact our friends, they live on small slugs, the little ones that hide under ground, and which devastate our plants. So although they may look awful, they are not the ones you need to get rid of to protect your hostas.