The Hosta Handbook

INTRODUCTION

When L first began seriously gathering data for a book on hostas in 1983, 1 never would have guessed that 1 would take this long to complete the project. The Hosta Handbook represents my observations, measurements, and interpretations about many of the hostas that | have viewed. [ realize that my deseriptions may differ from what others have seen, and my opinions may just be that, mine alone. As best as possible, | wrote everything from an objective viewpoint and tried to not give any personal or business considerations much weight. | utilized and noted the works of other writers whenever it was essential to the understanding of various topics. This book was written with the intention of it being carried around in the garden, a kind of field guide for hostas. It does not completely describe all hostas in existence. Instead | have focused on hostas that have had the most impact in shade gardening. Among these are the traditional landscaping plants (e.g., Hosta lancifolia, ‘“Fortunei Hyacinthina’, and ‘Undulata Albomarginata’), important commercial cultivars, and species that have some horticultural importance. The latter group includes all that 1 saw growing in the wild in Japan plus any that have been widely grown in Japanese or |

| American collections. Of course, since thousands of hostas now exist, 1 was left with the prospect of ignoring _

| the vast majority of them. [ have partially solved that dilemma by briefly describing or naming many other hostas under the categories of “seedlings, sports, and other related types” and “other similar types” that follow each of the 278 major listings. This adds at least a mention of over 1300 more hostas. Unfortunately 1 have not been able to describe or mention many fine plants, but that will have to wait for a future date.

The Hosta Handbook has been written from a horticultural perspective. My main concern has been how each hosta will perform in a garden environment. The only deviations from this center around the few species that Ì observed growing in the wild, but even my descriptions of them are horticulturally oriented. Over the course of the last 20 years, | have witnessed the numbers of hostas grow from a few hundred significant types to a few thousand. Not only are more people growing hostas, but more are being hybridized than ever and more sports are being discovered in gardens, nurseries, and tissue culture labs, Data needed to be taken from more sources at more times of the year. The numbers of photographs that | felt were necessary not only to publish, but to study each variety, mush

roomed significantly. That, however, was my task, and the result is a relatively small summary of all of the data and photography that went into the project.