It's a piece of crap, for me and many

When a particular hosta is not doing well for me, I relocate it and usually try that several times before "giving up." I have had zero luck with Cherry Berry.

It needs morning sun, lots of water and it will probably still be a disappointment.

In this case, having a LOOKALIKE is a blessing.

How about trying Moonstruck? It is a nice plant, I think the same size, and not as temperamental.

At least, it looks similar to me.

And for a size comparison, Moonstruck with The Razor's Edge

Mine hasn't been a good grower. Yesterday I decided it was do-or-die and moved it to a spot with more sun and lots of compost and peat. Only time will tell. I love the shape and red petioles, thought it was worth trying to save.

I never bothered to buy one after I read the bad reviews of this hosta on this forum in 2009.

I must have read those same reviews, because I steer clear of it as well. Moonstruck is good for me, although no red pets on it. But I have lots of other hosta with various colors of pets. Invincible Spirit is a good one, has a lot going on, plus it comes from the plantaginea family which makes up for the lack of white, to me anyway.

its all about the fact.. that 60% of the leaf is white.. frankly.. its a GE type plant at best ... very dependent on PERFECT amount of sun.. to offset the lack of chlorophyll .. and a lot more water than your 2nd pic shows ..

as per above.. it will simply disappear one winter ...

i have killed at least 3 of them ... no i refuse.. they committed suicide .. lol ..

ken

ps: isnt invincible ... one of the worst slug baits in town.. so inappropriately named.. and its good to see another plant with that epitaph .. already with bug damage.. lol ... [is I one of paulines plants???]

Thanks for all the great replies - I don't feel the least bit guilty now. So I'll give it one last chance in a new location, and have a trip to the hosta nursery to choose a more willing resident for this spot. (Ken's right about the water problem - this one is off the radar for my sprinklers, and also, I suspect, for my son who tends the gardens while I'm cottaging.
Jan

Perhaps your 'Cherry Berry' has crown rot. Can you pull off leaves and some part of the crown is mushy? Your hosta seems to sit in a wet corner. I just gave what's left over from a H.'Clovelly' a bleach bath and cut off mushy parts, then replanted it high in a pot. This worked on 5 other plants with crown rot.

From now on I am hesitant to grow crowns below grade. The heat must further crown rot. Bernd

I have 2 (new this spring) and so far they seem to be doing okay. The one got beat up from the branches and wind but the other made it through untouched. Both of these are in west sun and not that great of soil so maybe you are treating them too nice. Time will tell I guess

My CB was bought last year and I had placed it in a larger pot and burried it in a sleeve in the ground for the winter. But late summer last year it really had faded. This spring it came up very nicely. Everything I did this year was late for health reasons, but I unpotted CB and planted it. Now it is showing late season stress again, but this year so am I.

I might suggest that if you like a healthy Cherry Berry, and I do, then maybe the combination of a pot and sleeve in the ground is the way to go. The one I used is a commercially availabe one, though I don't remember the name. But I have duplicated it using consecutively larger nursery pots. For example, if you pot your CB in a 10" nursery pot make a sleeve by cutting out much of the bottom of a 12" pot. You bury the 12" sleeve you've made in the ground and place the 10" pot in it.

I have several sleeves in various spots in my gardens and leave them there. They come in handy whenever I want to check on light conditions of a new hosta before committing them to planting. I am also addicted to hostas and buy them without regard to where they will be planted (duh). There is little set-back when moving pot and sleeve grown hostas. I would love to have a large garden area with variable light with imbedded sleeves of varied sizes. But then I would buy so many I would violate the integrity of it by wanting to plant my beauties in the ground. I am sooooo hostaholic! lol

I hope I have just made sense. If not please ask me what the "H" I was talking about.

But I tend to agree with ken and bern, this is a diva not unlike Great Expectations. I might try GE once more but only if my sleeve idea seems to justify it. I think these difficult hosta just do not compete well and need extremely controlled care: unless you are lucky and hit the lepricans pot of gold.

What a name for a hosta: H.'Pot of Gold' or 'Leprican's Pot Of Gold'. Is there one?

Les

I like 'Cherry Berry' but there are hundreds of other hostas that I like as well, and I don't have space for them all. My lifestyle - out of town for most of 3 months in summer - doesn't lend itself to hostas that require special care and coddling, no matter how satisfying to succeed with the difficult ones. I will probably just move on, and try something else, and have more appreciation when I see a well grown C.B. in someone else's garden.
Jan

Ken, sure do know how to hurt a gal! :)
No, Invincible is Paul Adens.
And Invincible Spirit, the one shown in my post above, is Hugo Philips and Ben Zonneveld...

Pauline is clean on this one.

So you think it is slugs....I was thinking cut worms, but did not find any. Whatever it was liked to start at the edge and keep going. My new slug bait in the 10 pound container arrived, so it will be curtains for slugs now.

I've noticed that the pellets will after it rains and dries a couple of times, they turn to a black fuzzy powder, that will pouff into the air when I then water with a hose. Just so it is not harmful to breathe it, my slug bait is iron phosphate active ingerdient.

Good to have you making jibes as you do, Ken, my most favorite boss was such a one.

We have a KILLER CB, lemme see if I can go get a good pic, it's getting a little dark out . . .

hh

Not here. Since earlier posters mentioned in may be a matter of 'just the right light', I guess I got lucky:

Speaking of light, this one is planted in what I call 'the border', meaning right at the edge of the pine forest, so it's seeing a lot of northern sky without any direct light, except the occasional 'dappled' light sneaking through the pine forest as the sun travels the sky.

The slug damage you may notice is all 'my bad' since I didn't think about the fact that this season was running 2-3 weeks early and didn't re-time my slug/cut-worm poison applications.

fwiw,

hh

Thus far I have gone through 3 of 'em, I've given up on this one......

Pieter

Mine is in my RIP book. Lasted 3 years.

-Babka