Most should do well... in areas of high heat and hot sun you will see some affected... for example... hostas with wax coatings will lose this wax coating quicker.. i.e..blues turning green quicker... you'll also see your variegated edges burn quicker... THE MAIN THING... keep the top foot of soil moist... whatever it takes to pick up mother nature's slack... soaker hoses or drip irrigation are the ideal watering methods...I think you should pick and shop for hostas just like someone in zone 3.... you'll just have to water them adequately and they should do great.. they might even do better than average... more sun equals more chlorophyll which means more growth!
John

There are some folks in Northern California and Texas who use hosta, but they do it mainly in pots. Not sure why it works better for them, but hopefully, they'll chime in.

Your responses sound encouraging. I suppose I could call my local county extension agent's office and ask also.

Thanks!

I'm in Northern California, but we don't get the heat here and the glaucous bloom stays on my blues all season, and even in fast draining pots they don't require water more than every 3 days or so. Florida has humidity and warm nights, we are dry with nights in the 50's in Summer.

My only suggestion is to try a few and see what happens.

-Babka

You are right, for as little as they cost, it's worth a shot.

I'm in Texas and grow about 100 hosta. I recently moved so am working hard to have rich beds again but my previous home they thrived! I built lasagna beds of compost, compost, aged horse manure, compost and shredded leaves which they loved. I'm in East Texas which has 100 degree days regularly but I watered daily. With some extra preparation and just a bit more care yours should do well!
Sunny

I grow hostas in heat in zone 8A. I grow mine in containers using a reservoir system I learned about here. Mine are about 5 years old, but the heat does slow them down somewhat. Good luck with your experiment.

Dumb question, but does it get cold enough in zone 8B for hostas to go dormant?

They do need a dormancy period.

Bob Solberg suggested the Plantagenia group being a tropical (attached link)

And this is an excerpt from a George Schmid article:
How far south will hostas grow? Zone 10 is NOT a hosta habitat. Yes, you can try with a few H. plantaginea derivatives and perhaps store them in a cool area during winter. I have seen them in sub-tropical Italy in pots. Being in pots exposes the entire plant to cold air temperatures and they may get enough dormancy to return in spring. They fail in the ground, though, because the ground stays warm all season. Whatever might let them succeed in zone 10 would certainly not be a garden habitat, but an artificial one, like that of a hot house for growing orchid in the North. Some the methods you suggest may work, but all are also artificial methods. If you had a million, you could build a cool house with the temperatures adjusted to zone 6 and lots of artificial watering during late summer. That might work but it will cost a fortune. Here in the South, people grow some hostas in zone 8, but that is about as far south as I have observed them (in Savannah). I have never seen hostas successfully grown in the ground further south in Florida (zones 9 and warmer), but I have heard of a guy in Florida who installed an underground chilling system to keep his hosta roots cold. It might be better to grow sub-tropical plants or cacti.>

Here is a link that might be useful: Solberg talk

I too, grow in pots. I'm going to try some So Sweet in the ground this spring, though. Some varieties will do better for you than others. What has been suggested for warmer climates are the progeny of plantaginea. That translates to something fragrant. The hosta library has lists of fragrant hostas www.hostalibrary.org. Tony Avent (a hosta breeder and nurseryman) has also made of hostas that do well in warmer climates http://www.plantdelights.com/Tony/warmhosta.php. The Smith County Extention service did a hosta trial several years ago. (Tyler, TX is in Smith County which is alternately 8a or 7b.) They have sandy soil, like I'm sure you have. They probably get cooler, but they are just as hot as we are. I'll attach their results at the end. The hosta library has pictures of most hostas, so you can see what the recommended plants look like. Most pages have a link to another site that will tell you how big they get (my hostas database info).

I would suggest you put some in the ground and some in pots. I didn't have good results in the ground, but I live in black land clay. This was also many years ago, when I first started gardening. I've read in the gardening section of the local paper that others have had success with hostas in the ground. Apparently, really good soil preparation is the key. I would suggest no direct sunshine. Two of mine burned this past summer just getting the really late afternoon sun. They're under a pecan tree, but at about 5:30 in June, the sun got them when it went to it's northern most angle. It was between 5:30 and 7:30 in the late afternoon. They won't die from that small exposure, they'll just get ugly. Most hostas don't put on many more leaves after they first leaf out in the spring, so if they get burned, you're stuck with it for the rest of the season.

Good Luck. We'll be here if you have any questions. Most of us are not gardening right now, but are checking in weekly instead of daily like we do in the spring and summer. Just be patient, we'll be here.

Bkay

(everything shifts when I copy it here, but the first rating is how the plant looked in june, then august, then october, then an average)
NAME DATE AVERAGE
June August October
Blue Angel 9.8 8.8 10 9.5
Sugar & Cream 9.2 9.4 9 9.2
Blue Cadet 8.7 8.8 10 9.2
Francee 6.0 8.8 10 8.3
Gold Standard 6.3 7.6 10 8.0
Honeybells 7.1 8.8 8 8.0
So Sweet 9.4 5.6 8.5 7.8
Royal Standard 7.4 9 7 7.8
Lancifolia 7.3 7.8 8 7.7
Grand Tiara 7.8 7.2 7 7.3
Albo-Marginata 7.6 5.8 7 6.8
September Sun 6.2 7 7 6.7
Sun Power 6.8 6.8 6 6.5
Elegans 6.0 7.4 6 6.5
Emerald Tiara 7.8 7.2 4 6.3
Patriot 4.6 6.2 7 5.9
Bold Ribbon 6.5 6.8 3 5.4
Guacamole 6.7 5.4 4 5.4
Gold Edger 7.1 6 3 5.4
Fragrant Bouquet 5.1 4.8 6 5.3
Sagae 5.2 4.6 6 5.3
Shade Fanfare 5.5 4.6 3 4.4
Summer Music 3.8 2.8 6 4.2
Undulata 6.3 3 3 4.1
Temple Bells 6.1 3.2 3 4.1
Krossa Regal 4.2 3.8 4 4.0
Resonance 4.3 5.2 2 3.8
H. fortunei 'Aureo Marginata' 4.3 3 2 3.1
Aphrodite 3.5 2.4 3 3.0
Colossal 4.3 2.6 2 3.0
Fried Green Tomatoes 3.8 3.4 1 2.7
Invincible 4.5 2.6 1 2.7
Halcyon 2.8 2.8 2 2.5
Big Daddy 2.3 2.8 1 2.0
Daybreak 1.7 2.4 2 2.0
Sum & Substance 2.1 1.8 2 2.0
Hadspen Heron 1.5 1 1 1.2
*Master Gardeners were asked to rank each variety from 1 to 10, with 1 = worst/almost dead, and 10 =
outstanding in every way.

Thanks again for the wonderful responses, but I forgot ask which varieties don't spread too far horizontally, as it is narrow walkway leading up to the front door, where they will be planted?

You'll probably have to go to the Hosta library and look them up. Blue Angel is real big, Sugar and Cream is big, Blue Cadet is small, Francee is medium sized. That's when I run out of knowledge.

Again, you will have to look them up and find the ones that get to be the size you want, will do well in the heat and look like you want them to look. The hosta library has added sizes on some varieties. The "my hostas database" generally tells you the mature size.

For instance, Blue Cadet's mature size is 12". It's a spreading plant, so it's more flat. It has dark green leaves with a "blue" kind of cast. The leaves are fairly flat.

Grand Tiara is also listed as small. The width is not listed, but it's listed as 14" tall, so it's going to be more upright. It's leaves are apple green with a dark green streak in the middle.

What I did was make a list of all the recommended varieties. I put it in excell and sorted it alphabetically, so I could find the duplicates from each list and eliminate them. Then I started looking them up and rating them by size, price, what I liked the look of, what was different from what I already had. It takes a while.

However, to get a good hosta, you have to invest some time. They have to grow to a mature size and that takes a few years. And some varieties are fairly expensive. You want to start with something you like, fits the spot, looks good with the surrounding plants and will do well in your yard. So investing the time to research it is worth it.

bkay

One thing to note is that since you plan to grow them adjacent to a walkway, presumably concrete, is that concrete retains a LOT of heat. So, you know how hot it is to walk on concrete in the middle of the afternoon? remember, that's right next to the hosta. This is going to mean they'll need that much more moisture.

And you may want to be cautious of hostas that have thinner leaves.... when they're thin, they bake easily.

The entrance to my house is U-shaped, and the walkway's flanked by 3-4' of dirt and surrounded by 3 walls and a Live Oak canopy is hovering overhead, so I doubt the walkway is going to radiate much heat, but you are right about concrete serving as a thermal mass upon exposure to the sun.