Thanks to the generosity of my aunt I have a ton of hostas. They are one of my favorite flowers. Not so much because of their blooms, but because of their leaves.
I thought there was only the standard dark green variety of hosta until my aunt shared hers with me. Turns out there are many different varieties including miniature ones. I think the miniatures might be my favorite.
The ones that have a gold or bluish tint are also very pretty.
I was tickled pink to learn hostas are edible a few years ago. As soon as I cooked some up and ate them I started looking at all the ones around our house as a food supply. We certainly don’t eat them all the time, but I like knowing we could if we needed to.
The only thing about hostas I don’t like is the way they look after they are finished blooming. The long stalk where the blooms were develops odd looking seed pods and takes on a rather raggedy look. I normally go around and cut them all off leaving the pretty leaves to enjoy till cold weather takes them down to the ground till next year.
Over the years of taking the stalks and throwing them over the bank and on the bank I’ve inadvertently started even more hostas.
In the beginning I never gave any thought that I might be propagating hostas by “planting” the seeds in other areas but that is what I have done.
Taking the stalks and throwing them where you’d like hostas to come up next year is by far the easiest way to start more plants. You can also allow the stalk and seed pods to completely dry out. Once the pods are dried you can cut or break them open to get the seeds and start them indoors, plant individually, or share with friends.
Last night’s video: The Garden Has Flat Out Got Away From Us!
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I want to complain about the hostas in my yard, the surrounding woods and the adjoining wooded ravines. They can be very, very invasive. I have resorted to using herbicide to get rid of this awful plant.
I am planting only native plants which our native insects use, the insects that feed our native birds.
The hostas you shared with me are coming along real good!
Loved your garden tour last night. It’s fun to see how things are growing there. We just harvested our garlic crop today. We are drying them on two tables on our patio. I will braid them in a couple weeks and hang to finish drying. Harvesting is definitely the fun part! Prayers for your mama.
I never knew you could eat them. I yjink they are very pretty. I use yo have some at another place we lived but not where we are now. Hope all goes well Granny. Bless and love her heart
I love hostas, too. I didn’t know that you could dry them and plant them from seed. I’ve always just divided the roots. My granddaughter calls them snake bed plants!! Thinking of Granny and wondering when her appointment is.
I am a fan of hostas also, but not their flowers. My sister-in-law gave me several plants and I bought one many years ago. Hostas multiply rapidly so we have many plants now. We have moved hostas to three different places we have lived over the years. This year has been a very good year for hostas. Mine have exceptionally large leaves. Next spring when they start popping up it will be time to thin them out, planting in other areas of our yard and giving some away. I have to be careful where I plant them since we have deer walking through our yard all the time. Hostas are like candy for them!
I have always wondered if you could plant hostas seeds. I have often planted the flowering stalks in the ground but I realize I need to let them come to see then plant it. Just in a hurry I guess lol.
Teresa Burleson and you too Gloria, be sure to read my today’s reply to you on yesterday’s post about driving the buses at 16 years old. I am guessing y’all were too good to do anything like that. I used the money I made $1.65 an hour and drove 3 hours a day. I paid for my clothes, ring, gown and anything else I needed with the money I made my senior year. I was not made or asked to do this, but just felt like it was the right thing to do as a way for me to help out my parents.
Oh that is so wonderful that you drove the bus, but also that you used your money wisely. Being a good steward and helping your Parents. I love ❤️ that.
Mama and Daddy bought me a
car (mainly Daddys idea). To help run errands. Which I loved doing. Mama worked a full time job.
Mama always worried, as Mamas do. Especially when it came to driving the school bus.
I used my money to help with the car insurance, etc..
Pray that you and Granny’s day has been blessed.
God bless.
I didn’t know about being able to eat hosts until you shared the information! I really loved your garden walk through! it may have got away from you but it is bountiful for the most! Thank you for sharing your knowledge and especially your heritage of you and your family! I am praying for your Mom. God bless you and yours❤❤
Hi tipper! I just came back from my garden with a whole basket of cucumbers that seemed to have grown overnight. I was wondering if you would share the crispy pickle recipe you’ve been raving about. Also, I want to thank you for sharing the good and not so good things that are happening in your garden. We too have had a difficult year with some of the plants in our garden. My husband has been very discouraged lately and I keep telling him we need to be more like the both of you! Instead of focusing on all that is going wrong with the garden we should focus on all that is still going well. There is still so much to be greatful for!
Thank you for being so special and always brightening my days!
I’m so glad to know about hosta seeds. I only have 2 plants (in a big pot) but will try that. In hot, dry Northern California things are different. ❤️Granny❤️
Hi Dixie. It’s so nice to know I am not the only Northern Californian who enjoys celebrating Appalachia.
The deer have been eating our Hostas up ….
I love hostas although I don’t have any planted. Your garden is beautiful, and the flowers are just gorgeous! Thank you for taking us on a tour. It may be out of control to you guys, but it was beautiful to me and I’m sure the rest of us. Praying for Granny and all of you.
My mother planted hostas around part of our driveway, and when I was a child, I loved popping the bulbous purple buds. They remain one of my favorite plants, and I also love the giant leaf blue varieties which are actually amazing!
My late husband worked as a truck driver here in central FL and in between jobs, he’d build greenhouses/grow houses & shadehouses. Irrigation & fans for temp control in this state plus shadecloth of varying degrees is a must!
My brother is also a truck driver and takes plant deliveries northeast & the Midwest mostly.
Growing foliage is a moneymaker in this area whether hostas, ferns or vines or anything else gardeners desire.
I love hostas. The leaves are so beautiful and then you get the pretty flower. We live in an independent senior community, so I can only have indoor plants. But, I have wonderful memories of having flower gardens. Your garden is beautiful. Praying for Granny and all of you. Granny is so sweet and I love her positive attitude. Our Lord will take care of her! Take care and God bless ❤️
I’ll send this to my wife. She loves hostas so I’m sure she will not let some of hers go to seed and put them around the yard where they might pop up. Thanks for the tip. I’ll have to look into the eating part though.
I’m also a big fan of hostas and have a few different varieties in our yard. I had no idea they could be propagated by seed! I always thought they had to be divided by the roots. We were pleased to find a hummingbird has taken a liking to our hosta bed, this year. Praying for Granny and for your family. It’s been quite the season for you…but we know that the Lord will see you through. Praying specifically for peace, strength and assurance.
Looking to plant hostas next year around the big shaded porch of our old Missouri farmhouse. Like the idea of miniatures and different colors. Continued prayer for Granny…
Thanking the Lord for the rain and low humidity this morning.
Your flowers are very breathtaking especially the nasturtiumsI love every color!
Sending extra prayers today for everyone✝️
How do you NOT have deer in your garden? I’ve always heard hostas were a magnet for deer so never tried them down here in Florida. I thought they loved shady places and cool weather.
Yes Mary hostas do better in shaded areas. Mine do get some sun. I’m not sure in your growing zone, the heat and humidity may be too harsh.
You can check your zone for growing hostas. Happy growing
God bless
Tipper, I am often amazed and taken aback by your knowledge. You know something about a great many things and almost every day I am enlightened to learn from your knowledge. I didn’t know hostess are edible, but I do now. I knew the purple stems must be the flowers and seed pods, but to know I can chop them off and throw them where I’d like “volunteers” to come up. I like every hosta I ever have seen. They’re all different, but variety IS THE SPICE OF LIFE! You go, lady friend, with your smart sassy self!!! I just adore you and your blog every day! You are the cat’s pajamas!!! You rule in the hills! Love and prayers to granny and the fam.
I hardly know the name of one flower from another. My mother and grandmother loved flowers and both had a yard full. The thing I noticed in the picture was how pretty and green the flowers were. To me this means plenty of good Rain water. As I mentioned yesterday very little rain and very hot temps over the last month, everything is drying up. A chance of rain today but also severe storms, at one time yesterday it was 80% but I never even saw a cloud. I will be praying everything goes well for Granny, she is mighty precious.
I was amazed when I saw you eating hostas on CA. I never knew that they were eatable. Beautiful greenery.
i’ve always loved hostas too. We have been living in a 43′ Grand Design 397th (toy hauler) full time for 4 years, so I haven’t been able to plant anything, just have a few flowers around our area. When we were stationed at Cherry Point, neighbors gave us two real potted ficus trees that sat outside with our outdoor furniture that were so beautiful, (they were about 200 lbs each), but when it was time to move, my hubby was NOT happy! The older woman who ran the campground for the base had become my dear friend, so we gave them to her…but we had to rent a U-Haul just to move them, lol! No more big “flowers” for me! Of course, now that we are more settled here in WV, he might let me get a couple of bigger pots, and if he will, I think I’d plant some hostas by our outside patio furniture. Still praying for Granny.
I may have to go clip all my stalks and start a bunch in another location. We have finally had a couple years of no deer and we get see the hostas in full growth. They truly are a beautiful plant.
I was awake around 3:30 this morning and when I went back to bed I had Granny on my mind. I started praying for her and you. Granny reminds me so much of my Mama. Her positive attitude is so much like hers. I will continue praying for her and hope to hear a great report from the doctor. That reminds me of that old song “who’s report will you believe, I will believe the report of the Lord”.
Really enjoyed your YouTube last night. Thoughts and prayers
Thank you for this post. I will watch for seeds to plant in other places in my yard. I pray Granny is doing well physically and mentally. She reminds me so much of my past family members. I love seeing her.
I enjoyed seeing all the things in your garden in last night’s video too. it looks so good. I wish we had the space for a proper and complete garden for all that we would like to eat. I have a bunch of hostas though in the front of our house, not boxwoods just the hosta. They look so big and pretty when they come up in the spring and then bloom and these are thriving. They are so vigorous that they have encroached over into the front sidewalk to our front door. My family always complains about how big the plant is and how ugly & raggedy, like you said, they look when those flower stalks dry up. They do look bad but I have heard gardeners say to leave things like that so the plant can soak up all the energy from the sun for when they go dormant. I have always left those ugly looking stalks until they were completely brown thinking I was helping the plant. These plants have gotten so big; every year I say I am going to brave dividing them and also move them back so they do not come over the sidewalk like they are. And every year they start to come out and because I lack the courage to cut into them they will become too big to deal with so I leave them for the next year. I have also heard gardeners say they are a pretty resilient plant so have no fear to divide them. I did divide one small out of the way section last year and replanted two little pieces myself and gave a friend one or two as well. I think all but one that was probably really too little came back this year and has done well.
It makes sense that there is seed that would produce more plants but I never thought of that with the hosta. I am going to try that this year with these here and see if we get any new ones : )
God bless you friends of Appalachia, pray for Granny, pray for my friend Pauline, reopening her hip to remove infection from previous hip surgery, God bless you thank you for praying ❤️✝️
I have one hosta given to me by my Aunt, I will be saving the seeds and spreading them next to my other one, and looking for other places to send seeds to. I also cannot wait to try to eat some as well. Thanks! Melissa Faith, Liberty, KY.
They are indeed a pretty plant, although I think I’m kind of partial to your Nasturtiums and Zinnias, or what my family always call old maids.
Hope everything goes well for Granny at the doctor today. Continuing to pray for her as well as you, Matt, and the girls.
This happened to our garden this year but instead of hostas, it’s been tiger lilies! Some of them were ruined when our neighbors installed a new fence, and so we had to dig some up, thinking they were dead. We moved them behind our garage where there’s just a bunch of dirt and we just left them there, and all of a sudden we have tiger lilies back there! Shows how resilient and adaptable nature is. Thank you for today’s post.
You have such a pretty garden and while watching you tour, my hubby and I shared how we missed our homeplace in No Georgia…just south of Blue Ridge. Getting older and the need to be a better group of Drs and hospitals, should we need them, caused the move to upstate Florida where we are now. I have tried growing the hostas down here seems problematic…too hot I think, but I will keep trying. We marvel at your knowledge of being able to be able to always know the name of all the flowers and hope that one day I will be able to do that. Give Granny my best and pray for a good Doctor’s appointment. God Bless….and tell the Deer Hunter he is a good cameraman…
I didn’t know they would start like that. I have l9ng been a fan of hostas, but as yet have none planted. I have an area where I plan to make a shade garden and hope to have a large variety.
I think hostas are so pretty. I enjoyed seeing the garden in yesterdays video. Everything looks great! Continued prayers for Granny ❤️