I am in Tenn and the pots work better for me, too. This year we have put in some raised beds, so we'll see how this works. Thanks for sharing your pics. Great plants!

Your hostas look amazing!

After going for many years (15 planting seasons at this house) and only loosing 2 'brand name' hosta I really got a shock this spring by loosing 8 over wintered potted up hosta.

It shook my confidence about container planting. I now will only over winter just the plants I use on my deck and I am making sure they are not new varieties. Live and learn.

Connie

Always encouraging to see your container plantings, highjack!

Now--which of yours are the earliest risers and the latest, if you recall---it may make a huge difference in my planting choices!

I want to say thanks, highjack, for your excellent post a couple of summers ago. You shared your experiences about using pine fines as a growing medium. All I can find around here is pine mulch, but it is working very well. I did try a few pots with compost, and I lost some of those hostas. Out of three hundred hostas, I lost maybe two this past winter. As you stated drainage is the key. Your pictures inspire me. How big would you say that container is in which you have Titanic growing? What size do you think is necessary for a mature Sum and Substance? Do you think I could get by with top dressing the really big ones?
Here are some that are starting year three in containers.

Highjack,

I too took your advice after I visited your garden. I use pine bark, can't find the fine stuff, but use the coarse and it seems to work very well. I haven't lost a hosta that was planted in it and most of them are doing exceedingly well. I appreciate your sharing your expertise with us. I do topdress with year-old cow pies because when it rains the water makes it's own manure tea and drips down through the medium. It has worked very well for my hostas and me. Now can you teach us to make hypertufa pots? (just kidding, I know there's a forum for that.)

Lainey

Thanks everyone, I'm glad you enjoyed the pics. The area I pictured above with the container plantings would have been useless due to tree roots. I also use containers to add vertical height to basically flat growing hosta.

I'm sorry Connie you lost some of your container plants. The one piece of information I neglected to mention was the containers need to be slightly elevated above whatever surface on which they rest. I keep the containers resting on pavers so the drainage can flow through the pot and not be impeded by garden soil creating a dam.

Last year I lost a hypertufa container of Silver Kabitan because I didn't move it off the soil and back onto the landscape timber. My laziness in the fall let the soil stop the drainage.

The only other container plant I lost last year in the spring from he!! was Maya Somethingorother which was planted in spring of '06. By the time I got to it to clean up the melted goo, it was rotting. I lost one eye, dug the second eye but it dwindled through the summer and didn't reappear this year.

Considering all the plants I lost in the ground last year and if some survived, forgot to come back this year, the containers were great.

Mary52, the Titanic is in a container as tall as a whiskey barrel but not quite as wide. A mature Sum and Substance needs a whiskey barrel. I have a Blue Angel several years old that is quite happy in the barrel.

Top dressing with compost should be great for the containers - it is when the compost is in the bottom that is the problem.

Janice if a hosta is an early riser in the ground, it is an early riser in a container. I have many hosta - Montana Aureomarginata, the plantagenia family, Sagae - all broke dormancy in the ground before any of the containers woke up.

You asked about Celestial and Earth Angel - I snapped a couple of pics for you - these were planted in '04.

{{gwi:979769}} {{gwi:979771}} Both are impressive, particularly after last spring and no, I don't have a favorite.

Lainey if you get this direction this summer, would love to have you stop by again. We opened up a whole new shade area that has been keeping me occupied.

I know this is an older post,but the pics are beautiful and I'm hoping to learn from you experts who are growing hostas in pots. I have lost a number of hostas in their pots (from the nursery, and ones I planted) over the years. Some have survived, most have not. It sounds like the rules are:
1. use pine bark
2. keep pot off the ground
3 (optional) compost on top of pots, if desired

Is this it in a nutshell?
You all seem to live in milder climates than I do...will it still work where temps could get down to -22F?

Finally, I think the recommendation is for pine bark fines, but a few people said they couldn't find them and are using pine bark mulch. Is that just any typical 100% pine bark mulch found at any nursery (like nuggets, or shreds?)

Thank you!

Mine in pots have done best on the ground over the winter. In the summer as long as you water them thay should do fine, but if you move them around, keep in mind that the ones not growing in sun will burn easily if you move them to a sunny spot for a few hours.

Dave

I have used potting soil, usually Miracle-Gro Moisture Max with my hostas with no problem with rot or wintering over. I worry more about them getting enough water in summer than surviving over winter. I have a huge Blue Angel in a very large terra cotta pot that I'm going to need a jackhammer to remove if I ever want to repot it. And I have a Minuteman in a decorative iron scrollwork planter lined with those coco liners for windowboxes and hanging baskets. You can't overwater those and I am warm enough apparently in zone 6b to not worry about freezing the roots over winter.

I cannot find pine bark fines or soil conditioner anywhere. I found a product called hardwood fines mulch. It is black in color. Would this work as well? I am getting frustrated trying to find the right bark to pot my my many hosta in, and fear as I write this, they are getting crown rot. I potted them about two weeks ago in a mix of 1/3 spaghnum peat moss, 1/3 composted manure, and 1/3 sand. Of course, that was before I researched and now know that would be bad. I need to repot them all soon, but don't know what to do without the pine bark fines. HELP!!!!

Orchid bark is the same stuff... any mini bark used for mulching works too.

-Babka