First, let me say that I am not an expert. Others who may comment here probably are. I understand hostas need about an inch of water a week, possibly more when there is extreme heat. I treat my hostas for slugs, but I have not treated them with fertilizer ever. Maybe I should, but I haven’t. His recommendation sounds like a lot of fertilization. I deal with my yard naturally. I avoid any chemicals. Now I know about milorganite because I’m from Milwaukee. It may be ok to use once once a season, but I am personally leery of using it more that that. Somebody else please chime in. Ken, Babka, gardengal, utag, nicholsworth, steveduggins ===>>>what do you all think???

in the ground.. i would fert in july.. when they start growing roots to store energy for next spring ...

imo. they come up on stored energy.. so no real need for spring fert ...

and they basically dont have a second flush until after jully or so .. probably when they start growing those roots ...

if you have a basically fertile soil.. i would not think hosta need anything extra.. ever ...

if potted.. i defer to the pot people ...

anyone who could make a 20 minute segment on such.. is probably selling fertilizer ...

all blue hosta.. and many others have a glaucous way coating.. which reflects the blue sky.. making them appear blue.. they are green under such ..

overhead watering will wear off the wax ... so i would never overhead water hosta ... if it can be avoided ... another blackeye on the video provided.. which mind you.. i did not watch ...

all that said.. a little of this or that ... isnt going to hurt anything .. but in my world.. warped as it is.. why waste the money.. if you dont need to??? ... i mean really.. i have other plants to buy... im not wasting budget on fert ... and i grow on sand ...

ken

Sounds like over kill to me. I've heard of just putting down time release fertilizer in the spring and leaving it with that. I like Milorganite as it keeps deer away. I have a habit of not fertilizing my plants, but I think my Hosta would have grown quicker if I had. Especially since I heavily amended my clay soil with pine bark fines which may take up some of the useful nitrogen the first year or two but gives me black gold soil for my plants. In hindsight, I probably wouldn't have amended so much, especially for Hosta. Once they get big, what's the point?

I will admit now that I have never fertilized any of my hostas, not even the ones in pots. I also use cheap top soil instead of nice soil. When I used good potting mix for the potted plants, the death rate when up. I have been considering fertilizing the ones in pots, but I am wary. There is so much blight/sclerotia in my yard. I feel like fertilizing a plant in my yard is signaling to the blight the next plant to kill. So, I think I will just put a few more in the ground instead of fertilizing them. I have read somewhere that the red clay we call soil around here is high in nutrients.

Thanks everyone!!! Its good to know one does not have to labor over such a resilient plant! Moist -understory plants dont normally need fertilization because all the dropping leaves and twigs are constantly composting in situ. At least thats how I see it. Thanks for the confirmation.

I live in an extremely dry climate here in Colorado. We do not really grow "big" hostas here due to the climate. I have some hostas on the North side of my house that survive on only what is given them by mother nature. They get almost zero supplemental water. Occasionally if it has been very dry, I will hose water them a bit. But they do fine. Some of my hostas are on drip line which gets water only 3 times per week. The rest of my hostas only get overspray from lawn sprinklers also 3 days per week. I do fertilize my hostas with Milorganite just before they really start to unfurl.

Oh and I do have some mini hostas in containers and I water those daily by hand.

Gosh I have a lot of hostas! Ha.

Just wanted to say the man in the video is not selling fetilizer, I dont think so. I think he is just a fanatic.

Lots of water and Osmocote + are my recipe for Hosta growth/health each year.