Tips On Growing Giant Hosta.

all right tonight i thought i'd talk about uh how to grow big hostas so this is my main garden here um this wasn't originally my plan to make this where i put all my big excuse me all my big hostas but i put some here and they got big so this became my big hosta garden uh why is this hostage why does this garden grow so big well there's a few factors the first thing is the soil is really good uh 10 yards of triple mix just in this kind of general area here when i uh when i first first moved in and there was a quite a severe slope here and the soil was just like rock so i just built the fence and made the garden with the soil and so far so good um this is the property actually has a fair slope on it and this is right at the bottom so all the water that at the top just runs it's comes into here so the houses are always moist they always get lots of water and nutrients right because i do fertilize fairly heavy um and the other thing is it's really important and it's often overlooked is giving them the right kind of light if you want to get the big giant leaves you know ones like uh you know ones like this or that or you know any of these any of these big leaves they get too much light the leaves stay small they don't get enough light the plants stay small so you kind of have to find that goldilocks zone and it's a rough estimate you know three four hours of direct sun doesn't matter that much when it comes ideally you want them protected between twelve and three uh mostly it is here except for in the center here it gets a fair bit of sun during that time but for the rest of the day it's dappled light so i planted these trees here and pruned them the japanese maple and the honey locust and i pruned them so i'd actually give the garden nice high shade so lots of light gets through but it isn't getting blasted by direct sun in the heat that's key to getting big so with the water and the good soil tree root competition some trees are better than others ones that i've had success with planting under japanese maples honey locusts oak trees they put out a big tap root so they don't really interfere with the growth of the host at all the worst ones are you know fruit trees dogwoods anything that puts out a big shallow very uh you know tight root system you know with the cherry tree i i made a garden up there and just turned into that i have to completely uh to completely change my whole plant for the garden love the cardinals and the blue jays but i am from toronto area so uh so keys to getting the hostas big i'll just give a few bullet points here um first one site them right give them the right light not too much tree root competition lots of water good soil and give them room to grow like you have to leave the plant alone pick where you want it to go and leave it it takes six seven years for some of these plants to actually hit their full potential and if you move it every couple years it's never going to get big and just you know when you're planning the garden out research research a bit find out what you're buying for the plants adult size is 30 by 72 inches don't plant them two feet apart plant them six feet apart that way you don't have to keep moving them you can just let the thing grow and just leaving it there is really the key to getting a big with the water and the right light anyways if anyone else has any tips you can certainly uh put them in the comments go over a couple of my hostas that i put in here that i really like this one put in last year uh goodness gracious i would look for it for years i really like the plant uh this one is pretty exceptional this year it can take a lot of sun and it just burnishes a really nice gold i didn't actually think this plant ever got that gold but i'm quite happy with it uh just behind it there's lakeside chacha this is a plant it's close to getting rid of just kind of put it there now it's starting to grow on me a bit it's starting to look like a nice plant apparently it gets pretty big and tall too so it's got a bit of room there to grow but not if this one grows so anyways that's next year's problem and paradigm nancy gill that's uh empress wu i think it's a very overrated plan yeah it gets big and it gets big leaves but there's so many nicer big hostas it'll get 90 as big as that one and look much better and there's a sega old school uh old classic great hosta slow growing but eventually it will get huge and it's very durable like it doesn't seem to suffer from a lot of problems it just keeps going and there's my old summit substance that's the first host i ever bought and uh that's actually a transplant there about four years ago from a garden where i was getting choked out and put two little pieces there and it just turned into a monster it's very close if not over six feet from point the point and next to it is atlantis again if you see one buy it great plant very very hardy very fast growing very durable it can take a little bit more dryness than some and again with another one really nice cold heart again super durable plant it takes shade it can take sun i like it better with a fair bit of sun on it the color is much better and another one uh awakening angel it's not look at its best right now it's just it's been so hot here all the all the wax is burned off the leaf but again it's a good durable plant and a good performer and here's one i bought this year this is my uh only purchase of a hosta this year and that is uh bridal falls i think it's when it gets big it gets very exotic looking although there's a first year plant i think it's pretty good now it's gone from this greenhouse grown so it's gone into the real world now so there's a little bit of damage on it but overall it seems to be adapting quite well to its new home and sometimes it's nice to put in uh a little bit of coloring with the hostas this is a spot with uh got a daylily in there hopefully it blooms soon i moved it this year so it may not uh this is a maltese cross it can take uh it doesn't need full sun to bloom in a very bright plant i'm uh i really like it i've had it for a number of years but i'll show you the difference on my other garden here where i uh where i planted some stuff on how much difference tree root competition and water makes because basically the lights kind of the same so six feet across giant leaves and then as we kind of head up the yard that's the new garden i cut in this year i'll talk about that one another day so this is the garden i put under the uh cherry tree and everything so much less lush and plants have been in here a long time so there is a summon substance that's grown in competition his whole life same age as the plants in the other garden it's off the same original plant got to put something here now that i took the garden but uh kind of keep it as a kind of a talking point i guess again it's just very it's just so dry up here like you can water it soaking wet for 45 minutes day and a half later it's bone dry again and there's the kimberly queen fern it's a freebie this year i don't know if i like it or not it was out during that really cold me so i probably set it back to touch and yeah what really thrives in here i don't really thrive but they survive in here the youngest lancifolia that's a really super fast grower that's been the same size since i put it in there uh pearl lake even the uh dicentra the bleeding heart it doesn't get very big in there it's been in there for eight years should be a monster so just watch the tree root competition and make sure they can get enough water your hosters will do good anyways thanks for watching

Channel: james martin

Views: 80,611

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Id: YRZ0rCuQ35g

Length: 11min 25sec (685 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 30 2020