GET GROWING!

HOSTA LA VISTA, BABY!

By LADYBUG

I really have to divide these, I  think, as I walk by the shade bed under our linden tree.

When we first moved to this house, there was nothing in the yard except the tree, which I was thrilled with because the yard not only gave me a blank canvas, the tree provided me with the opportunity to plant my first shade garden.

Blessed with plenty of sun in our previous garden – so much so that neighbours would credit the sunshine for all the blooms, claiming they didn’t have the same degree of success as a tree filled their yard with shade – I longed for a tree under which I would plant hostas.

Oh, I had the odd hosta or two, gifted to me by my friend Linda, but they tended to languish in a sunny garden. I remember the time I called her excitedly to announce they were blooming and she said, “A hosta’s blooms aren’t so great, you plant them for the foliage”.

Which is certainly true, because the spikes of small flowers tend to be a washed-out pale mauve, nothing much to write home about, while the leaves can be really spectacular. But as my hostas weren’t behaving like hostas in my sunny yard, I took what I got.

Things changed under the linden. I planted the clumps, alternating between the plain green leaves and the variegated ones. In front of these, I planted columbines,  lily-of-the-valley and ferns, other shade-loving perennials.

And all of them took off, as though in a hurry to show what they were capable of  now that they were in the right environment.

The hostas grew large and lush, the columbine blooms danced in the breeze, the ferns fanned out  and the lily-of-the valley escaped into the grass in the yard. But the hosta blooms were, as Linda had said, meh!

Until I saw the plump white buds of a hosta in a yard while driving by. They were so beautiful, reminding me of tuberoses.

And they were blooming in August, when the other hostas had done their thing.

Then I spotted the same white hosta blooms in other yards as well. But nothing in garden centres that seemed to match these. I found varieties called fragrant bouquet and fragrant king, but while beautiful, the flowers were near white or pale yellow, not the stunning white ones I now had to have.

Hostas with rippled leaves, hostas with yellow and white edges, with blue leaves that were ribbed... I saw them all and brought home a couple, but the white one eluded me.

I took to walking by one of the gardens with the white hosta, hoping to see the gardener to ask where they had got it from – and, have to confess, also harbouring a secret hope that the gardener would offer to give me a piece. What can I say, we gardeners can be greedy and acquisitive! However, I never saw anyone working in the garden, it was like elves came out at night to maintain the pristine yard.

And so my hunt continued. I was reminded of the song from the Scarlet Pimpernel books.

They seek him here, they seek him there

Those Frenchies seek him everywhere

Is he in heaven or is he in hell?

That damned elusive Pimpernel!

Of course, Baroness Orczy was referring to the chivalrous Sir Percy Blakeney who rescues French royalty during the French revolution, but it may as well have been about the white hosta – I sought it everywhere without success.

And then, one day, a serendipitous find! Actually, two!

I walked into one of those little pop-up garden centres that sprout in the parking lots of grocery stores and there sat a pot of hosta with broad dark green leaves edged with gold and a single stem of white blooms! Right next to it, another hosta, with deeply ribbed leaves and a stem of white blooms.

I brought both home. They are yet to spread like the others that need to be divided yet again, but I am hopeful the linden will do its magic and I will be treated to those white blooms I have been dreaming of.

If you have hostas, remember to cut back the leaves in fall because the slugs tend to reduce them to mush.

And then it’s hosta la vista until next spring.