Looking forward to the pics, I'm jealous of all your potting/planting time. I spent the two "nice days" out of the last 10 in Chicago and now it's raining here AGAIN. I will go out and look for pips tomorrow, though...we had some warmth and I noticed that I had growth spurts in some plants while I was gone....so maybe an early pip or two.

Wow, an IN the ground border? That's new for you for, right?

getting rid of the WalMart pots which were rotting my hosta,

==>>> how does a pot cause rot??? one might think its the pot design.. rather than the seller of such...

shall i presume its a drainage thing???

sounds like you are really into ... FULL CONTACT HOSTA GARDENING ... lol ... no half measures for you.. eh .???... lol [and i mean that literally]

ken

Ken, the term applies. Yes, full contact is how I approach this business, as you'd agree if you saw me right now. I've been out potting the new guys from Green Mt., and they are all lined up with their new pots as the newest of the new to watch in my staging area for a few days. So far no pepper splashed on them, but all in due time.

I thought I'd indicated that it was the lack of drainage, even with holes drilled in the bottoms, pots and saucers included, that would NOT drain. For whatever reason, maybe because the holes were on the bottom, even though they sat on thick cypress shredded mulch, that some were swimming in water after some of our heavy reains. I'd been cycling them out of my hosta garden, but this spring I really saw the damage they did with my poor plantaginea collection. I had 8 of them, mostly from 2012, and they are like miniature plants. The soil was soaking wet in the bottoms and a good way up the tops. I was disgusted. I am very pleased that Chris at Hallson sent extra plantaginea as my gift hosta, since I only ordered one. One can never be too rich, or have too many Mama plantaginea hosta.

Anyway, my two neighbor ladies who garden and each own ONE hosta....its a greenie and might be Honeybells, I'll see when it blooms.....they are quite pleased to have the old pots since they pot and sell their daylilies and such. Making a little retirement $$$ from their green thumbs. Both have free passes to my hosta garden.

Not much is showing in the potted hosta, since there were some pips but no leaves. I realize that it is a lot easier to pot dormant or pipping hosta than the leafed out ones. With Chris' directions, I'm HXLL on wheels with the pot job! I think I almost know what I'm doing these days.....hehehe....

But I'm pulling out those NON DRAINING pots, which just happen to be sold by WalMart, only place I ever saw such for sale though, and using the very basic black nursery pots of appropriate size.

With this windfall from GreenMt, I got my Fair Maiden and it had over 20 eyes. I got confused and started the count over a couple of times, then finally said, 20 is close enough for gummit work. And my additional Verna Jean plants (I ordered 4 more) came apart into about 8 to go with 2 full pots from 2012 also from Green Mt, so I put them in a ring around a full The Razor's Edge to make a nice full display pot. Verna Jean multiplies quickly too, so I have visions of a real nice small hosta edge to my driveway bed. Not quite on the driveway, but close enough!

I got one giant in the bunch, my very first Montana, Aureo Marginata. Judging by the size of those pips, bigger around than my THUMB, and the heavy roots on it, with a big piece of crown as well, it will fill up a good sized pot this summer. I'm looking forward to that one.

Then I had 2 Harpoons. Those roots were fine as angel hair spaghetti, and had many eyes on each plant. I put them in one pot like twins, the next size up from the small pot.

Maybe later today I will be restored/refreshed enough to take my camera out to show off the flat black pots full of mix and white ends of name tags punctuating the lineup. But right now, I'm pooped.

I know I'm omitting some in my remarks, but that will change as they poke noses above the edge of the pot. I really want to see my golds.....the new ones, Cadillac, Fat Cat, King Tut...I'm a sucker for the gold hosta! I noticed most of this order was for medium sized plants, not intentionally, it just worked out that way. I also like the smalls, and those which are slightly bigger than small too.

Well, hope I've appropriately responded to the WalMart point of order. No reason to cast aspersions on them or their products. Just these pots are not good for hosta. Avoid them. Wanna see a picture? I'll show you a few shortly.

I have to start thinking about size, too. They are all getting really big. Either that, or do what Babka does and cull them as she gets new ones. I choose the ones that are pretty and then find out they are XL or G.

bk

Mocc, I know exactly what you mean! I bought some nice looking plastic pots on sale, hoping for something a little more "front porch worthy" than my trusty nursery pots. They have the water reservoir at the bottom, so I used a hole saw on my drill to turn the bottom of the thing to Swiss cheese. Those pots still stay wetter than the nursery pots. To me, it is proof of the "contact with earth wicks water out" principle. If we are thinking of the same pots, the potting mix is held off the ground level by a plastic insert. Do you think that's what's up?

Hi Mocc,

Is it basically this type of pot you're speaking of, with the ol' attached saucer at the bottom?

Don B.

Nooooo, not exactly that, DonB. If it were an OPEN saucer, with a big enough drain hole inside the saucer, it might work okay.

But the ones I mean have the saucer flush with the side of the pot, and they are about 2 inches deep. The saucer seems to plug up and retain water and last year I found a couple with rain up to the top of the pot. I went on a drilling spree, thinking that would solve the drainage problem But no, it did not work. I had about 6 of my plantaginea plants in them, and they shriveled up to nothing over the winter, losing most of the crowns, so they are tiny like mini hosta. THAT did it! And other hosta are down to nubbins as well, or I take them out (it hasn't rained in at least a week) and the roots are mushy rotten. It is disgusting.

Surely I have a picture of such a pot. It is cheap, comes in several colors (black, green, gray, yellow, red, and I liked the yellow). Let me do a search through recent pictures.
The only place I found these was at WalMart.

Yeah, here is lovely Beet Salad in one of them. It is to be repotted quickly.

This is the one I've used. It actually works fine as long as it stays on my covered porch in the growing season and in my shed for the winter...then I can control how much water it gets. I have three hostas doing fine in pots like this, but won't be getting any others!

That pot, Jadie, has a large exit for the water....which is designed for bottom watering, but you can dump water out easier with it. The one like I have, don't know the physics of it, but it sure holds more than a saucer full of water!

20 eyes on 'Fair Maiden', wow that's so great. You're gonna have a beautiful mature FM in no time. 20 eyes leafed out is going to be stupendous. Please, pics when she leafs out!

Don B.

Its fun to read all these threads about peoples orders coming in. Mine won't come for a couple of weeks yet. Thanks for sharing Mocc. So, where are the pics?

Beverly

I'm like the proud mama showing pictures of the kids....and if you like SONOGRAMS, then I have some new hosta pictures for you! Took them less than 20 minutes ago on my tablet, direct upload to Flickr already done.

I potted the newcomers yesterday and the eyes were basically covered, just white pips actually. This morning some of Fair Maiden is showing above the wet mix, and you can spot her quickly down front in this photo.

You know, only a hostaphile will look fondly at a newly planted almost dormant hosta! We are all in need of therapy!

And here is the staging area, with the bigger green plants some from Solberg and PDN in North Carolina, and then some of my repotted older items including Bro Stefan. Oh, there is more around the corner where no sunlight strikes the ones which wilted down....but all are about ready for prime time over there.

None of these is from GreenMt, since they were basically near dormancy. But this gets a cool breeze through the crawl space vent and it is in north shade all day at this time of year. Isn't Shimmy Shake impressive with her white backs?