Santa, you have some fine hosta growing over there in Texas. You must be doing something right to keep Fragrant Queen edges so perfect like that. I bet you water a lot?

Our ground is very dry and I water a lot, every day actually, but some spots with shade do not need daily watering.

You are getting great results, so hang in there, there is more to come for another 100 days at least. :)

Satisfaction is a great plant for our humid climate. And I cannot say enough about the Squash Casserole family....which requires copious amounts of water but looks great from early on, and matures fairly quickly. I recommend it highly for southern gardens.

(Well, Texas is sort of different, but still southern.)

Thanks, Mocc. I had planned to ask you and bk and the other southerners this winter for some suggestions for my 2015 order. You two have been especially helpful and influential to me since I found this board. Chris at Hallson helped me with this first batch "starter kit" to sort of test the South Texas waters, so to speak. So far, so good.

I am fortunate to have a yard that is almost totally shaded by large live oaks and elms. Most of my hostas are in what my wife and I refer to as "the rain forest", an especially tree thick and large part of the back yard that is mulched with pecan shells and gets every other day watering from drip irrigation sprayers. The shade and the sprayers seem keep the plants sufficiently damp but I do give them a good soaking at least once a week this time of the year on top of that. Over the next few weeks that will likely have to increase. My third year Guacamole is really large and the leaves block the spray so I have a drip irrigation soaker run to it which keeps it damp. I'm all about automation when possible. :)

What are some of the choices in the squash casserole family? I'll check those out.

What I have found that doesn't do well at all for me is anything that with very thin leaves and is light colored. I tried two from a local nursery over the last two years and the white part of every leaf burned through, even in 100% shade. I know there's a term for that but I forgot what it is. I lost one but my Loyalist still somehow looks halfway healthy in a totally beat up sort of way. Sort of like a demolition derby car that still runs like a champ.

Santa, choices in the Squash Casserole family include the yellow SC herself. It can take nearly full sun with adequate water.

Other sports include Yesterday's Memories (I got mine from Hallson), Wave Runner (new this year), Key Lime Pie. I do not have Jujen, another sport Tickle Me Pink is a hybrid with One Man's Treasure the podparent, SC the pollen parent. I have it, but cannot find it right now to take a picture. WHERE did I put it! :/

Squash Casserole the older one on 7/7/14

Squash Casserole the younger one, to show the first year plant ordered from Hallson . This shot of it in bloom is 6/25/14

Yesterday's Memories' 6/29/14 and it came from Hallson too, in 2012. It LEAPED this year, and is broader than 36 inches

Wave Runner is new this year, came from LOTG/Land of the Giants. I like the variegation with a narrow pale yellow margin and a deep gold leaf center, gold if it gets the sun, probably would green up in the midleaf if kept in mostly shade.

Key Lime Pie is no slouch, I got it in 2013 from Green Mt.
Here it is 5/31/14 with its medium green leaf and lighter gold margin with a slight ripple so far. It's probably the darkest one of the bunch.

Tony Avent created Squash Casserole for southern gardens, the story goes. He says it can take the climate as long as it gets adequate moisture regularly. I am a believer! It is my experience after growing SC for the third growing season and watching it and Yesterday's Memories LEAP this year. And I began putting the golds like SC in a LOT more sun, which scared me at first, but other than some golds bleaching out in the afternoon sun (I moved them to morning sun), the whole group look better than my results in previous years, when I was timid about giving them the sun. Now I see the light! And it is glorious.

Good luck making your selections. If you wish to get some suggestions from southern gardeners, meaning EXTREME HOSTA GROWING, start a new thread about it and folks will see it and make suggestions.

Santa, Squash Casserole is in it's first year here. I'm impressed. Tony Avent (Plant Delights) bred it for warm areas.

I'm still struggling with the 1/2 finished building our contractor left. (He's in jail.) So, I haven't been able to move my hosta into more shade. Squash Casserole is in sun in the afternoon after 4:00 PM. (You know how hot that can be in Texas.) It doesn't have a mark on it. Next to it, Paul's Glory is beginning to gripe by showing burned edges and Elegans is burning up entirely. Cathedral Windows is holding up well in the same spot. I'm really impressed with both of them.

Great Photos. All your plants look good. Your Fragrant Queen looks great, as does your Fragrant Bouquet. Neither of those are looking too good at my house right now.

Would you believe my Aunt is growing hosta in the ground in Georgetown? I always visit her in the winter, so I've no idea how well they do. She didn't seem to think it was any big deal.

bk

Squash Casserole 6/24/14 - Note how perfectly the blooms compliment the leaves in color

bkâ¦..Wow! That's a drop dead gorgeous combination of colors! Super plant. I'll add that to my list. Sorry to hear about your building problems. Unbelievable how hard it is to get reliable companies these days.

Hard to believe about your aunt! Hopefully you'll get to see them someday and see what they are. Georgetown's weather isn't much different that ours here in SA. I am seeing more hosta for sale around town and more showing up in the ground at people's homes the last two years. They look OK during the spring but most (or maybe all) are history once it gets hot and dry. I have two in the ground, the oldest a second year Drinking Gourd that looks OK but just is sort of there. Not impressive looking at all. The one I planted this year is OK but zero growth.

We'll see how my first year plants hold up once we start getting into the 100 degree range daily. Supposed to be upper 90s this week. Fingers crossed!

Santa, white margins or midleafs seldom do good for me either. Of course, that is not true with Victory, Sagae, and a few others with pretty good substance. I love the white mixing with green, but for hosta I must find other colors and let companions bring in the white. If you have a lot of shade, and don't mind the short life of caladiums with white or pink leaves, they'd do a good job and live during your best hosta growing months. Just a replacement solution to white on hosta leaves.

I broke away in the middle of that last paragraph to begin dinner. I spent a few minutes in the hosta garden, thinking about the strange leaf destruction I've been having this year. Some of the leaves have only the veins left, nothing in between. I then looked up into my pecan trees. Never thought about those pecan bag worms up there above. And I noticed, the light was silhouetting the bare veins of the leaf skeletons for me in an AH HA! MOMENT. Yeah. My damage looks just like what the bag worms are doing to the pecan leaves. What a revolting development that is!

Or so it might be. However I must research this as a pest for plants other than pecans or nut trees. I saw some bagworm webs/bags in another kind of tree this week. Not a nut tree, not in the hickory family. It was in a river birch, betula negra.
Don't think it is in the nut family.

You never know where the next problem is coming from here.

Nice plants, Santa! I am impressed with the success you all in the hotter zones are having with your hostas. I agree with the Squash Casserole family recommendations. Tony Avent is from Plant Delights, which is located about 20 minutes from my house. They sell a lot of plants that do well in the south there. I have Jujen, which moccasinlanding mentioned above as a sport of SC. Jujen is from Leonard Jones in Advance, NC, and is named after two of his granddaughters (Julie & Jennifer). Jujen wasn't growing well for me where I had it, so I split what was left of it in half and moved part of it to a different bed this year. It is SC with a creamy white margin.

Here is a link that might be useful: Plant Delights Nursery

Lavendar, I've shopped with PDN for many years before I ever looked at a hosta. Very familiar with their catalogs, which have some great descriptive literature....I like getting the printed copy. Don't know how Tony has the time to do all that he is into.

Do you have a link to Jujen? I did not see it in PDN website as available. I note that L. Jones registered it in 2002. Too bad it is not more widely available.

I think it might look like Wave Runner when it stays in our afternoon sun. And Wave Runner is doing very fine here since it arrived in June.

I think Wade has JuJen.

bk

I haven't had personal issues with bagworms but I've seen what they can do. I think pecans are one of their favorites.

Lavendarâ¦..thanks for the link for Plant Delights. I'll take a look at that.

Mocc, I got my Jujen directly from Leonard Jones, and I'm not sure where it might be available.