Velvet Moon

Victory

All good ones today, Paula! I definitely need another hosta.

Next season I want to do my best to get a good pic of every single hosta.... Can it be done? We'll see.

But only one today

Venetian Star

Paula, I love the cat/ possum picture......they come on my screened porch thro the cat door in the summer looking for any little piece of kibble. The cats ignore them and I scoot them off the porch by propping the door open and using a broom to herd them out. They are pretty blind and harmless..... but they do hiss......lol

Victory is certainly impressive!

steve, I like that V.Ruffle Shuffle..... I must move my Vulcan to sun.... I have it in full shade right now.

peren, I love the color of your Venetian Star and it’s so beautiful in bloom

Venusta is so prolific for being so small....it really packs a punch!

the pictures of ventricosa have changed my mind about that hosta.......nice looking!

I have only one V, Vulcan:

debra

About Karin Black Cat, she had soooo many lovely hostas. I asked about her this summer when I noticed she hadn’t posted recently. Someone indicated she was more Into succulents now. I miss her beautiful hostas too.

debra

I also miss the pictures and postings of Karin (and Jo).

Wish I had room for Victory- its spectacular!

If you’re wavering on ventricosa, I say buy it. I love them! They look good all season and bloom beautifully, with those straight-up scapes that I especially like!

Lovely Vulcans and Ventricosas, and others.

Vulcan May 2019

Virginia Reel 7/2019

Ventricosa aureomarginata 5/2/2020, among ventricosa.

Ventricosa blooms turn my garden into a butterfly haven every June.

Viking Sunshine in April 2020. This was a demo-discard from a hosta propagation lecture at Plant Delights Nursery around 2019.

Sorry for not weeding away the wild violets, but Viking Sunshine has a great flower display.

Valley's Lemon Squash at Plant Delights Nursery, 9/26/2020

Valley's Lemon Squash newly arrived at my home, 10/3/2020

Volcano Island September 2020.

Virginia Reel on the right of Silver Shadow at dusk, 10/4/2020.

underthe oaks, how do you contain the wild violets? I got some years ago and they have been a major problem for me ever since. They have invaded my yard and are relentless. I've filled countless garbage cans with their roots and yet they still return more vigorous than before I ripped them out!

A few V's today. Been waiting for Victory to leap for several years but the rabbits keep it pruned.

Valerie's Vanity

Ventricosa Aureomarginata

Victory

Vulcan

Miles, I have had no luck with the violets. I just throw them out and move on. The first thing non-gardeners notice about my yard is the violets and how pretty they are...and how violets are much better than grass. Oh well.

So I guess it's just tolerate what you can't eradicate, right? I also have issues with that chameleon vine, you know the one that's red, green and cream, another dumb move on our part to get a "nice ground cover." There isn't any such thing as a nice ground cover in my humble opinion. lol

My violets don't seem to disturb my Hostas (yet). I just grow bigger ones near them. Plus the deer came through one night and just ate the violets and left my Hosta alone. The spray probably helped (I don't spray the violets).

old_dirt, your Valerie's Vanity is the best I've seen. Have you thought about submitting a photo to the Hosta Library?

Old_dirt, I agree with sandyslopes——- there are only 2 Valerie’s Vanities in the HL and yours would be a great addition.

BTW, I had my own battle with ground cover.......black scallop ajuga.....,.,beautiful foliage and bloom, but very, very aggressive!!!! Pulled it out.

debra

Paula..I don't see the Black Dot but I can't stand to look for it anymore 😜..

l love everyone's V's..I have Venusta but couldn't find a pic of it that I wanted to share..it's one of my favorites..

I gave up on eradicating violets about a week after I moved in!..the older I get the less weeds bother me..I just pull the tall ones.. 😂

sandyslobes & Debra, thank you for the suggestion and compliments. I will try to send it in and see what happens.

It’s simple. There’s a link on the front page of the HL “send us photos” attach and send!

debra

I only have venusta, but no picture.

Nicholsworth, the black dot can't be seen when you look at it. You can see the black dot using your peripheral vision. That's really cool!

Question: If I don't see a number, then I get to buy a hosta? Am I limited to only one hosta?

newhostalady - depends on how many times you look. Every time you blink it is a new look!

newhostalady..I tried again..I saw dots on the edges of some circles..I'm satisfied now..I'm finished..haha

Yes old dirt, isn't that cool the way the black dot moves around!

Great job nicholsworth---now you've done it!

Hi guys, nicholsworth told me that you are missing the Valley's show :-) I still love my hosta but cacti have become my second passion and as I have to do a bit of reading about my new plants there is not so much time left for other things at the moment. I will try to post a few pictures, I hope it will work. As every year I had some new OS Valley's from Jeroen, they are small, but you might see the potential...

Forgot to mention...Paula, your jokes are as good as always!

It has been a very cold and wet summer and the plants had already suffered in the cold and wet winter, so I was not so happy with the growth and hope it will improve this year. I had changed my soil to a peat reduced variety and it seems the plants need additional fertilizer with this kind of soil. It's a learning process :-)

We had very late frost in May and some plants were damaged, but luckily another year is another chance with hosta :-)

From my friend Tiddisolo I gio this one:

Unfortunately Brexit will make it impossible to share plants with him anymore :-(

I will continue tomorrow, what a shame it is so time consuming to upload pictures to Houzz...

Karin so wonderful to have you check in and dazzle us with your Valley's collection. We have missed you and Dave as well. Such a shame your trades will end with Brexit. It is a good thing that you were able to for a time. Gorgeous specimens and will look forward to more tomorrow.

Karin, how great to see your posts. Your Valley's hosta collection is simply gorgeous. Valley's Glacier is especially nice. I will have to get one. I can understand your interest in cactus since I also like them. How many cactus do you have?

Karin..I loved seeing your Valley's!!..thanks for your time and trouble to post pictures on Houzz..we know it's a hassle..Houzz should change it's name to "Houzzle" Lol..some of your Valley's are so tall!..I think Bull's Eye has longer petioles than any hosta I've seen..

Great to see them. It seems like you have many more than before and there's still more to come? I understand the new plant passion. I've gone through several types myself. I'm just still stuck in the Hosta one at the moment. Remind me not to look into cacti. (Does that mean Echeveria is OK?)

Karin- great to “see” you again! Your Valleys are beautiful and those blues really draw me in. I especially like the last one - Love Buzz.

Thank you all for the warm 'welcome back'...as promised here is the second part of the growing Valley's collection. I already ordered a few more for delivery in June :-) So my hosta passion is far from over...

I had to have this one, the name is very fitting :-)

Valley's Paparazzi was extremely beautiful last summer

Only three leaves, but I already love the powdery blue

Crazy, isn't it? And I own only one fifth of meanwhile more than 400 Valley's :-)

I will do an extra post with pictures from the garden soon.

Steve, Echeveria are ok! But maybe you should take a closer look into cacti :-) Easier to care for...

And also beautiful!

Sorry for this little teaser :-)

Oh that Steve, he's such an enabler! Who doesn't need dozens of cacti inside? What else would we do in the wintertime? I've managed to kill a few of mine this winter, so I guess it's time to order some more cacti.

Karin, ordered more this spring? You've already got a gorgeous collection of Valley's hostas. I guess it's good that we can't get more here because we would all want them.

Thanks for uploading your pictures--we know that it's a pain and time-consuming.

Karin..thanks for more pictures :-)..I remember Red Scorpion!..I love it's long elegant leaves..all of them are attractive..three that caught my eye today..Perfect Flow, Space Cowboy, White Suit..

Old Ladies House would be fitting for me too!..the leaves remind me of Red Scorpion..

Wow, so glad you popped in to show off, lol. I think we are almost as excited as you are to see them grow up. How many seedlings do you have to go through to get 400 different cultivars? The wife is the indoor gardener, so I need to show her some cacti pictures. Cause the office is sunny, and we don't really use it for anything.

Here is the list with the new ones for 2021 :-) The Hosta Library has a lot of pictures of Valley's now. Maybe you can find those too.

Valley's Bronze Stature OS JL 2021

Valley's Cloudbuster OS JL 2021

Valley's Lemon Ice OS JL 2021

Valley's Green Beez OS JL 2021

Valley's Mai Tai OS JL 2021

Valley's Golden Mary OS JL 2021

Valley's Lemonhead OS JL 2021

Valley's Jailbird OS JL 2021

Valley's Double Dutch OS JL 2021

But I must say that I have sold a lot of my 'ordinary' hosta to make room for new ones. It is so exciting to watch them grow and I will be checking the pots in the next few weeks. But when they have been in the garden for four years or longer...time to say goodbye. Not for the Valley's and my other collector's plants. So I earned enough money to buy me new plants. Not so bad, I hope it goes on like this this summer. We are still in lockdown and many people have financial problems and so I will have to see if there's money left to spend on plants.

steve, I had one bedroom left after my son was out of the house and so I decided to use it as plant room. It is so much fun in winter!

Jeroen has thousands of seeds every year and he is culling most seedlings if they don't look nice enough to be another Valley's hosta. He has fantatsic streakers, but I don't want to buy expensive plants and watch them grow back to something not so special.

Maybe you should check for the F tomorrow, there are some nice Frisian to look at :-)

I can't pick a favorite of yours since it may not be available here for a while. I've always wanted Valley's Magnum and V. Perfect Flow (nice pic) is on my list but never seen them for sale so I stopped looking at his site and the Hosta Library. Perhaps I could live vicariously through yours if you get one (hint, hint) as we all do for the others. I'm always tempted to get whatever is available, but so far only picked up V. Ruffle Shuffle and V. Lemon Squash. This year I was very tempted by V. Himitsu and V. Salty Crocodile (among others) but convinced myself I had similar ones already - although, there's still time. I'm so glad you posted in alphabetical order. It makes it easy to go back and look for specific ones.

Frisian Pride hit my list early and I found one at Wade & Gatton's 3 years ago before I could find it anywhere else. I'm not sure I have it in the right spot yet, but I do like it next to V. Ruffle Shuffle. Frisian Waving Steel is on my list, but I keep debating between that and Fleet Week (and Flemish Sky) so haven't pulled the trigger on either, yet. Plus there are newer Hostas that are also similar. Looking forward to seeing what else you can tempt me with.

Speaking of Flemish, surely you have a line on some of Danny's hard to find intros to tempt us with. Flemish Gold was one of the first Hostas I bought and Flemish Beauty is a fast favorite.

Soooo..... favorite cactus? What is that one you posted above? Ferocactus fordii ??? I remember hiking around the California high desert and loving the wild cactus, especially in bloom. I didn't know what they were beyond their common names.

Gorgeous pictures Karin...... I am like Steve (he’s my biggest enabler), I want one of each one, but, alas I don’t even know where to buy Valley’s! Anyway, I don’t think I could pick a fav, but Valleys Silver Jet in bloom blew me away!!

debra

The Valley's are rare over here too. It's only because I dared to contact the hybridizer himself that I have so many now. He is not putting many Valley's into TC and often has only two divisions per plant to sell per year. And there are many people collecting, it's a question of seconds when his list comes out...I was lucky this year and some I only get because I'm pestering him for some summers now :-) For example Valley's Bronze Sature- I have been writing to him about this one for three years!

Actually, Flemish Sky is the only one in my collection. I had Flemish beauty, but it did not well. I'm trying for years now to get a piece of Flemish lion, but with no success so far...

Favourite cacti? Mamillaria and Echincereus at the moment, they make the biggest part of the collection, but there are so many ...I hope I will have nice flowers soon. It's not so easy when your plant room is not cold enough. The winter has been very warm and the temps resisted to fall below 12°C in my room and so it might not be easy to get flowers at all.

Frisian Waving Steel is a fantastic hosta, you shouldn't hesitate...