bkay I have not lost all of them but last year when the trees went some packed up and were gone. The last two winters I got no real cold. Most of my temps thru December and January were in the 60ies or 70ies. And with all this great weather I got no rain. It did not matter how much I watered it seemed like a loosing deal. This year a few have started to come up but it is not like I am seeing any pips yet. I was going to move more to the front this year but hurricane Mathew harmed my tree there and I needed to have it removed. So this year is going to be fun.

I have come to the conclusion that hostas grown in southern states should be considered a two or three year plant at best. And not to fret when it is gone get a new one. I am not going to baby them along if they are small this year I do plan to cull them out. Get me some cold northern babies.

The one change I will make is that more humus will be added to my mix. I have always used a fast draining mix as it normally rained just about every day. Now it is working against me. I have had to do a 180 in gardening.

So who is here this spring will be interesting. I do plan on taking more photos this year than last year. I took more of the big dirt hole in my back yard now my pond. City Lights loved the sun so did Sum and Substance.

I won't stop growing them. Maybe not as many as before.

Just wondering...has anyone in the Southern states tried refrigerating their hostas for a couple of months to try to harden them a bit? Maybe it would help to do that, if not every year then every other year (especially if you have a lot of hostas, maybe rotate them). I imagine the soil and leaves would have to be removed, and the crown and roots bleached before refrigerating, but other than that I don't know. Seems I remember reading somewhere online a while ago that someone successfully does this with their hostas, but don't recall all the details anymore.

Lack of winter/dormancy chill definitely affects them, sometimes even within a single season. At least that was my experience with new TC hostas last winter. Whereas I had overwintered divisions of mature hostas in our unheated basement before (several years ago) with no losses, last winter we had a mild winter and I lost several new TC hostas to rotting in the basement. The basement hostas that didn't rot were slow to wake up even once planted outdoors, a few of those never woke up and rotted outdoors instead, and the ones that woke up remained small all year...well, considerably smaller than the TC hostas I bought this year from the same source (which should have been the same size if not smaller since those newest ones were purchased this year rather than last year). Long story short, after that experience, and these global weather/temperature changes, I'm not risking any hostas to basement overwintering again. I suppose our unheated garage would probably be fine, but the 3 pots that I didn't put in the ground this year are just staying outside in their normal spots this winter...am a bit nervous about it but hoping for the best.

Who has a refrigerator that big? I am not even in a southern state, but on a latitude with St. Louis. We don't freeze here and rarely get below 30 degrees. There are a number of them that get divided when they get over a 3- gallon pot) that I have had over 20 years. I would say that most of my (many) losses are due to driver error.

Curious, Pampered, as to why you would bring any of them inside in zone 6? The ones you left outside this year should be just fine.

Deal with a 20% loss, either due to critters, or weather, or human goofs.

-Babka

at wholesale nurseries ... they are held for spring sale.. bare root.. packed into shipping boxes ...

you probably wouldnt refrigerate whole pots ... nor perhaps.. whole plants ...

hmmm .... every spring.. divide off some small divisions.. which could be put in the cold for winter .....

who knows ... just speculating ... ken

Babka, it was late in the season when I had more plants than yard space to put them in without letting some go first (and this was back when I didn't know that they could do fine outside in pots, although these were small pots). This year they ended up being super cramped but in the ground, except for the 3 potted ones that I kinda wanted in pots anyway.

Ken, yes, what I read some time back was for bareroot hostas. The person who was refrigerating his for the winter would wash and bleach the crown and roots (therefore, pots, leaves, and soil removed) and if I remember put them into plastic bags. Don't remember any other details other than that he said he dusts the roots with something in the spring that really makes them take off, and that he doesn't lose any hostas this way. Anyhow, it was just a thought for those of you who are in super warm climates and might otherwise have a hard time giving your hostas enough of a cold dormancy. Rather than losing them altogether after a couple of years, another thought could be to ship them off to someone in the North (gift them to someone in the Fall), and maybe this person would send you some of their hardened off hostas in the Spring. Kind of a swap type of thing :) Or else just treat them as annuals or biennials :(