Other perennials including astilbes, ferns, dicentra, and heuchera make good companions for hostas. Impatiens, nicotiana, coleus, caladium, and begonias are all shade-tolerant annuals that go well with them. Look for ways to produce color echoes when pairing hostas with flowering plants.
What looks good planted with hostas?
Hostas are ideal for shade gardens, adding a hint of the tropics to otherwise barren areas of the yard. When selecting companion plants, aim for those that, like your hostas, prefer bright morning sun and cool afternoon shade. Hostas go well with astilbe, ferns, geraniums, and shady-friendly bulbs. Bleeding hearts and heuchera are two of our faves.
The delicate blossoms and elegant, arching branches of bleeding heart (dicentra) plants are the perfect contrast to bold, flashy, or variegated hosta plants. They also blossom early in the spring, enabling the flowers of your hostas to take center stage later in the summer.
Heuchera, often known as coral bells, is cultivated for its leaf, which may provide a splash of crimson, purple, or silver to your shade garden. Take a colorful bunch of flowers and turn it upside down: For a garden full of rich, vibrant leaves and light-colored flowers, combine red or purple heuchera with marbled or striped hosta species.
Learn how to plant, grow, and care for hostas from our experienced gardeners.
How much space do you need between hostas?
While Hostas are known for their fondness of the shadow, they thrive in dappled light for the majority of the day. For the greatest color, yellow and gold cultivars require 2 to 3 hours of early sun.
Hostas can grow in a variety of soils, but they prefer a rich, moist soil with plenty of organic content.
Plants should be spaced 1 to 4 feet apart, depending on the variety. Planting closer together will allow the plants to fill in more quickly, resulting in a hosta ground cover.
Planting: Hostas can be planted at any time during the growing season. Spring is the greatest time to plant in the north since it allows the plants to establish themselves before summer. Fall is a good time in the South because of the cooler weather. It is feasible to plant in the summer, but plants will require more water than usual to withstand the heat.
Do you plant hostas in groups?
DO: Sort the same varieties together. Hostas are low-maintenance plants for the garden. They look nice without a lot of effort or upkeep. By clustering many specimens of the same cultivar, you can avoid a patchy appearance. You give them more visual weight by massing them together, and they don’t wind up seeming like an afterthought.
Can I plant hostas in my vegetable garden?
Growing hosta is beneficial for a variety of reasons. They are commonly planted for their ornamental attractiveness, as previously stated. Flowers can be attractive, and the variety of foliage can add interest and aesthetic appeal to a variety of garden kinds and zones.
They can be useful as ornamentals for homesteaders wishing to add appeal to a shady area. Their foliage can be used as a stand-alone aesthetic element or as a backdrop for more showy flowering plants.
Another advantage of using hostas in your garden is that they are quite simple to grow. They’re perfect for a forest garden or any other low-maintenance garden plan.
These plants also have a lengthy lifespan. So, if you treat them well and plant them properly, they can add to the beauty of your garden for many years.
But, without a question, the most useful aspect of hostas is that they may be eaten. This plant family’s members are all edible, and several have been revealed to be quite delectable!
Consider growing hostas if you already have them in your garden. If you don’t have it yet, you should consider adding this unique perennial food crop to your portfolio.
Do hostas need a lot of water?
Watering the root system rather than the foliage benefits Hostas. Deep root growth is aided by slow, deep watering of the soil. For the first two weeks, newly planted hostas will require daily watering.
Small or medium plants will require a good soak once a week once they have established themselves. Hostas tolerate drought but need moist, well-drained soil. Increase the watering frequency to three times per week if the weather is warm. Large hostas should be watered twice a week in the summer and daily in the winter, especially if they get a lot of sun.
Growing Hostas in pots necessitates more frequent watering. Because pots drain faster than gardens, giving the plant the slow sip it requires can be difficult. Water the pot every three days during the summer months. If the soil still appears to be too dry, it may need to be watered on a daily basis.
Do hostas spread on their own?
Hosta types are versatile and easy to grow, and once established, they spread quickly. Healthy clumps of hostas can be divided into smaller clumps every few years to share with friends, family, and neighbors, and they develop from rhizomes that spread just below soil level.
What is the best time of year to plant hostas?
Early spring or early fall (as soon as the summer heat subsides) are the optimum times to plant hostas, as well as before the rainy season if your area has one. Hosta cultivars are available in a variety of sizes. Check the plant tag for the proper spacing in the garden. Hostas, with the exception of the tiniest varieties, require a few years to reach their full size, so give them plenty of area to grow. Plant the plant so that the root ball is at the same depth in the soil as it was in the pot when you put it in the ground. After that, make sure to water thoroughly.
Can I plant hostas in full sun?
Sun-tolerant hostas must be protected from the heat during the hottest part of the day, even though they can withstand more sun than traditional shade-loving hostas. Hostas can withstand more sun in Zones 6 and north than they can in warmer zones. Even sun-tolerant hostas will struggle to tolerate more than a few hours of sun in the warmest zones.
Hostas for the sun do well in all growing zones when they have sufficient of moisture. Sun-loving hostas will need more water than those that grow in shadier environments. On sun-tolerant hostas, keep a thick layer of mulch on top of the soil to help conserve moisture. Visit local nurseries in August to look at hostas and decide which ones are best for your landscaping. The sun-tolerant hostas that don’t have scorched leaves are the ones you can bank on to perform in your garden.