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santamiller

South Central Texas Hosta Pic

santamiller
9 years ago

I've lurked about on this site for some time to gather info about hosta keeping and especially enjoy seeing pictures. Our options in the San Antonio area are very limited but the few that I have tried have done well. All are potted and are placed in the thick shade of live oaks and cedar elms. The first two I started with are now in their third spring and while they did well last year, the change this year has been amazing. This is my Guacamole in a 14 inch pot.

Comments (16)

  • bkay2000
    9 years ago

    Hey Santa, welcome to the forum. I'm glad that I'm no longer the only Texan.

    Your Guac is really nice. I see yours got a little frost bit, too.

    bk

  • newhostalady Z6 ON, Canada
    9 years ago

    Welcome Santamiller. Thanks for showing us your Guacamole. It is a great hosta. I too was amazed at the growth and beauty of one of my hostas a few years ago. That is how I became a hostaholic!

  • santamiller
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    Yes, we had some unusual cold for a couple of days after it started growing but luckily didn't do any real damage.

    I'm glad to see that this isn't a Texas free forum, although if you say "hosta" in this part of the world you might as well be speaking Swahili. :)

  • User
    9 years ago

    Wow, San Antonio area! You are pushing the envelope there!
    I am so pleased to have another high zone hosta lover coming to the forum.

    Since your Guacamole is in its 3d year, you probably started with hosta in 2012 or maybe 2011, just like several of us who visit the forum. It is always helpful to see how they grow in different climates, with different soils, or in containers. Most of mine remain in containers, but it seems this year I may be up potting quite a few.

    Don't be bashful showing your photos. Or don't hesitate to ask anything, it is all fair game. With the help of this forum and several great hosta information sites (including the AHS), I've learned a lot, met (online) a lot of great people, and am more into hosta today than I was 3 years ago.

    Incidentally, a good portion of my nearly or approximately 500 hosta are in the fragrant family, and I use the Fragrant Flowered Hosta list kept by Don Rawson at the link below. I give it here for your convenience.

    Welcome, and have fun!

    Here is a link that might be useful: Don Rawson's Hosta Lists

  • don_in_colorado
    9 years ago

    Welcome to the forum, Santa. Great-looking 'Guacamole' you got there. As long as I have you here, I'd like a $500 gift certificate from Hallson Gardens, please. If you put "Merry Christmas from Karen" on the envelope, it would go a long way. My wife needs to earn some hosta Brownie-Points. : )

    Seriously, WELCOME!! Stick around, enable, and BECOME enabled. It's a great forum.

    Cheers,
    Don B.

  • santamiller
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    Thanks for the warm welcome, all! What a great link. I will save that one for sure! I started with my Guacamole and Undulata Albomarginata in the spring of 2012 as an "experiment" to see how they would do before trying any others. They came out strong in the spring of 2013, but not until probably early April, even though we had had warm weather since mid Feb. Both had nice blooms. This year they started popping out of the dirt in late Feb. Maybe the colder winter helped, maybe just because they had another year to establish themselves. I have no clue on that. I bought four more last spring, a Drinking Gourd, Rare Breed, another Undulata Albomarginata and one other that escapes my brain at the moment. Those four all came back this spring and are looking good. All are potted in 10-14 inch pots with Miracle Grow potting soil and in dappled sun, very close to full shade. I fertilize them every two weeks with water from my planted aquarium when I do a water change. I fertilize my aquarium weekly with potassium nitrate, potassium phosphate and an assortment or trace ferts, so they get the benefit of the same ferts that my aquatic plants get. How much if any that helps, no idea, but something seems to be working. I'm hoping this isn't all an accident as I have become a total hosta freak. :)

  • santamiller
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    Donâ¦.funny that you mentioned Hallson. I spent some very informative time on email with Chris and have five fragrant flowering hostas that he thought had the best chance of doing well on order from them. I'll catch you on the gift certificate on my next order!

  • don_in_colorado
    9 years ago

    Nice choice! Great place to get hostas, Santa. I think almost all we U.S.-based hosta addicts on this forum love Hallson Gardens. You certainly will be happy with what you will get.

    Don B.

  • User
    9 years ago

    Santa, whatever you are doing will work until you know better, then it goes downhill with a big OOPS. At least, that is my experience!

    And I am chuckling here, because I too started with about 6 or 8 plants and that was in 2010 when we had a house in Massachusetts too. I put about 3 in the ground in Alabama in 2011 May. Next year, which was 2012, by about June I was welcoming #200 in the mail. It was my Hosta Sparkler, still have it noted on its name tag. As they say, the rest is history.

    How far will it go this year for you? Now that you've made contact with the forum, we'll have to see. It's a wild and crazy ride, and it becomes more exciting as time goes by.

    As a side note, I ran into an old acquaintance at a meeting. She is a master gardener, so I mentioned that I was growing hosta now. To which she replied that oh, hosta don't grow here, they always die. Words to that effect. So I said I'd like to show her MY hosta, along about late May or early June, when I have everything all spiffy and under control. It is an amazing sight, and I want to see her face when she treads down the garden path beneath tall sasanqua camellias draped with spanish moss, solar lights twinkling on as the light fades, and the tall liriope and the naturalized ferns hide all the pots, the cypress mulch quiets our steps. It is total MAGIC. Then we'll see if she still believes hosta don't grow here. And I won't share a single plant, they are not mature!

  • santamiller
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    That's what worries me! I generally research things to death before I jump in. I have started slowly with my hosta keeping and am happy with my results so far, but still feel far from confident with what my long term results will be. There just isn't a lot of real life info out there about hosta keeping in the deep south. I have to say that seeing what you have accomplished in Mobile, which is very close to our weather conditions here in SA, does make me feel better about things. I'll continue to research and follow this forum to learn all I can.

  • User
    9 years ago

    Santa, I can appreciate your hesitancy, but don't let it keep you from doubling your pleasure and halving your losses by INCREASING your number of hosta plants.

    Plus, I'll add a link to a previous thread about a book I found at my public library, and found it discussed hosta too. The author is from or in Jackson MS.

    Do a forum SEARCH on "Books" and you'll find several books and what folks here think of them. Plus, there is an ebook on hosta available from the site www.plantsgalore.com
    and also available through Amazon. Cheap both places.

    Here is a link that might be useful: Plants for Southern Shade

  • santamiller
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    I will check out the book and the link. I appreciate the boost of confidence from you and others that this can indeed be done in my area and will happily move forward with my new addiction. Onward and upward!

    Is "hosta" the plural of hosta? I see it spelled both hosta and hostas.

  • bragu_DSM 5
    9 years ago

    the plural is 'hostaholic' ... a breed in and of itself

    welcome home ... you can check in but you can never leave ...

    dave

    _~

  • bkay2000
    9 years ago

    Both hosta and hostas are used for plural. I'm not sure which is correct. I don't think anyone else knows either. If so, I don't think they have graced us with the information.

    bk

  • User
    9 years ago

    Instead of relying on my hit or miss attitude about words and proper usage, I googled "hosta plural" and found the link below. I know the question was asked before and the same answer was given. However, I still am inclined to just say HOSTA.....all the sibilant ssssssss-es just drive me wild, so I tend to leave them off. But for an unexplained answer on WHY they add that "s", follow the link below.

    Being funny now, but the proper plural of hosta is AS MANY AS YOU LIKE. ;)

    Here is a link that might be useful: hosta plural

  • don_in_colorado
    9 years ago

    According to a publication of the American Hosta Society (The Hosta Adventure) plural is 'hostas'.

    Don B.

    EDIT: Or 'hostaholics'. : P

    This post was edited by Don_in_Colorado on Mon, Apr 7, 14 at 16:50