My hosta's that are mulched with shredded bark did not do good this year. Do not know if it is because of the drought last year or what it is. The mulch was put down last year. Love yours, wish mine looked that good.

Jill

I had a few that came back smaller this year and I attribute that to the drought. I had a H. Guacamole and a H. Thunderbolt that did not come back. I have about 60 hosta so I really did not loose many. You may want to pull the mulch back from the base of the hosta a few inches. I read this on another forum.

My Guacamole is so small. It is the sixe of my pinky finger when last year it was huge.
Jill

OK, tsmith2579 gets ten replies to a post on hydrangeas and get one on my awesome looking hostas tells me that I need to get a few more hydrangeas!

Your hostas are beautiful! We added Paul's Glory this year. I hope it does well. In our garden we also have: Summer Music, Darwin's Standard, Stained Glass, Drinking Gourd, Guacamole, Potomic Pride, Sum and Substance, Whirlwind, Gold Standard, Patriot, and a few unnamed varieties. We lost a couple of Gold Standards this year. They came back the size of my pinky but never grew and finally died out. One of the Guacamoles is stunted, too. I wondered if the drought and relatively warm winter had something to do with it.

I loved your Red October. Does it have a red stem? I am always on the lookout for big leaf hostas. So far, my potomac pride remains the largest of all my hostas.

I'm a bit nervous about losing those hostas this year. I hope it doesn't mean the hostas are going to start fizzling for me due to weather changes. I'm looking into what I can plant to repace the hostas that die out. That's when I added a few more hydrangeas.

-Sharon

I'll confess. A hard-core addict here, but Mother Nature is giving me the cure.
Hostas must have a long dormant period, cold winter temperatures and lots of water during their active growing period, to thrive.
I have been growing them for more than 15 years and at one time had about 500 different cultivars. In recent years, with warmer than normal winters and persistent drought conditions, I have had to replace almost half of them.
Most Hostas must have a minimum of 350 hours of chill temperatures at or below 35°F during the winter, otherwise they will emerge smaller each year and finally disappear.
Warm, wet winters and the use of high nitrogen fertilizer can also cause Southern Blight, a fungal disease that thrives under those conditions and causes the crown and roots to decay.
The use of mulch around the plant prevents the soil and thus the roots, from becoming cold in the winter and delays dormancy.
Have begun growing many of mine in plastic pots, insulated from the ground, so that the roots and crown can benefit from the available cold temperatures. It's about like growing them in a colder Zone and they do better than those in the ground.
Also reduced the use of commercial fertilizer and depend on the annual application of compost for nutrients.

Have become resigned to the fact that, regardless of any corrective measures one might introduce, some Hosta cultivars just will not survive very long, this far south!
Some of them won't even survive in the north. That is a result of rushing into production, every sport and seedling found in a garden or culls from a Tissue Culture lab.
In olden days, it was an accepted practice that a new cultivar was grown to maturity (about 5 years) and it's performance assessed, before being introduced into cultivation and registered.
Today, a sport is found, shipped to the TC lab, dissected and placed into the agar. As soon as growth appears, it's moved to a cell pack, doused with chemicals constantly and when a few inches tall, is ready for shipment!
The grower removes from the cell pack, places into a saleable sized container and continues the chemical bombardment.
If you purchase one of those, you will have to continue the chemical treatment or the plant will begin to decline and finally die.
If you purchase your plants locally, remove the pot and check the roots before you buy. If the foliage is large and the pot isn't full of roots, shop for the beauties elsewhere. You will only be buying trouble and possibly a falure.
MHO
Rb

Good to hear from both Sharon and RB. 500 hostas - that's a lot. I don't see getting more than 100 or so at the most. During the drought last year, it was so difficult to water, I reduced the size of my largest bed - reduced it in half. I had a long sweeping curve of hostas adjacent to a wooded area and it was too difficult to water. I now have five areas of hostas and that is enough for me. RB - do you have much trouble watering all your hostas?

jbranch, I love your hostas. I have 2 hydrangeas and about a 15-20 hostas (plants not varieties). I started out with 2 hosta from my sister's yard a few years ago and have been dividing every couple of years. Even with the drought the hosta did better than the hydrangeas. I have begun to think about adding a few more varieties, but I can't imagine hundreds.
Dorothy

RB, great minds think alike! ;) I have started growing more and more hostas in pots, too. They seem to do very, very well.

JBranch, I'd love to see pictures of your woodland garden area. Our first garden here (the one that got us hooked on gardening three years ago) is a woodland garden...still a work in progress. I love to walk the garden paths through that area every morning with a cup of coffee. :)

Dorothy, hydrangeas are definitely water hogs! Mine will wilt in the heat each day, but perk up just as quickly.

-Sharon

Bama - I don't have a woodland garden, rather a bed that fronts a wooded area (see the attached photo taken on a cloudy spring day this year). I have thought about developing a walk through my wooded area in the back, with ferns and other shade plants lining the path, but never have done anything with the idea. The hosta bed in the photo used to curve around to the left forming a bed that was about 100' long. It was way to big to take care of during the drought last year, so it is now much smaller with two rows of hostas where just one used to be. I have recently thinned it out since some of the hosta are crowding each other. I also am including a photo of some of my potted hosta including a H. Lakeside Dragonfly I got this year. It has been on my list of must-have hostas. It is the one on the far right. Got my first mini - the small potted gold hosta in the center.

Rainy Spring Day
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From left: Golden Tiara, Undulata, Gold Standard, Dragon Tails (front), American Halo and LS Dragonfly.
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A few more pictures...

H. Halcyon
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H. First Frost
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H. Regal Splendor
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H. Fire and Ice
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'regal splendor' and 'krossa regal' are good ones for me and two of my favorites. i like the upright, vase-shape growth.
how long have you had 'fire and ice'? no one i know around here has been able to keep it going. same for 'great expectations'.
'night before christmas' is a pretty good one if you like a good bit of white in the foliage.
i favor the golds and blues and they seem to be more robust here than the thin-leaved ones with lots of white.

Jeff - Fire and Ice is in it's second year in my garden. It looks good right now - has two leaves with melt out. You can see one right in the middle of my photo. I know it is problematic and plan to keep it at least another year. I am still in the very slow process of seeing what works here and what does not. I had a Guacomole and Thunderbolt that did not come back this year and the Red October pictured above has developed significant leaf burn that I assume is from lack of water. Since we had a wet spring I did not expect this. Other hosta in the same bed are doing much better, so I am not sure how RO will do over time. As I purchase more hosta, I plan to get rid of those that are very prone to slug and other insect damage (as you mentioned the thin leaved ones), but for now, I don't plan to purchase any more hosta this season.

I have a Great Expectation that is doing well, has been a very slow grower. Problem is, it does not really look like GE. It was my first internet purchase from Carol's Gardens. Don't know what to think about it, but will not purchase from Carol's again. It is healthy, just does not look like GE.

I have enough green varigated hosta and am also looking for golds and blues. The last two I purchased were Princess Anastasia (sp?) and Toy Soldier. PA is a gold, thick leaved, puckered with a blue edge, similar color as June but leaf is very round and therefore much more gold in it. TS is a blue with unusual green margin that develops a somewhat white stripe. I would like to purchase a 3-4 more golds of different types and several more cupped, puckered blues.

My Paul's Glory did not come back and the slugs have bitten up lots of my other hostas. I love them but I am not doing too well. I have a Patriot in a pot and it looks so pretty. What about winter. Will it freeze in the pot if I leave it out.I live in Dothan.

blooms.....
Living in Dothan, you MUST leave it out, to take advantage of the winter cold temperatures.
They will also perform better(longer) in your Zone, if you continue to grow them in pots, insulated from the ground in winter, so that they will get colder.
Hostas are cold temperate climate plants and do well in winter temperatures down to 40°+ below Zero F.
Rb

Blooms: There was an article in Fine Gardening about gold hosta that included a very simple treatment for slugs (and inexpensive). Click on the link below and read the 5th paragraph, then read the whole article - it is great.

Here is a link that might be useful: Van Wade Gold Hosta Article