Hallson Gardens

Your hostas are looking husky this year and multiplying fast, must be the rain and all that sun that you've been
groaning about.

I wouldn't buy a hoe but maybe one of those claw-like cultivator tools would be more useful, gets into smaller areas.

I can't tell from the picture what they are? There's always the Santa Claus method . . . .hoe, hoe, hoe.

They're interesting and harmless. I just step on them to squish them.

Jo, I don't remember many details or who did it but there was an extensive study done where many hosta cultivars were deliberatately injected with HVX virus. Results showed which hosta were very suseptible, some resistant and varying degrees of suseptibility in between. Here's a great link on hosta ...

Lucy, your JOTN is a great looking plant the way it is, there's more DGJ than JOTN in the crown. Maybe when you dug it before, you didn't slice off enough of the crown or the dormant buds to eliminate the gold? Snapping off a leaf or two or even an eye works, but it appears your entire crown is invo...

I can see why you couldn't leave them in Indiana, they're gorgeous.

Great links you posted, Jim, everything we ever needed to know about leaf show prep.

It may have been Lisa who shared the reason for toilets at convention hotels is to hydrate our hostas.

Trudy and Linda, nice to have my own cheering section, thanks.

The bathtub in Davenport worked well, the leaves perked up nicely after a long hot ride in the car.

Oh, do it, Renaldo, it's great fun and you learn to look at hosta leaves in a whole new way. Chose mature leaves, most typical of the cultivar, symetrical, flawless, and absolutely clean back and front from top to bottom. Q-tips and cotton balls are tools of choice. Condition them by soaking in cool...

Ants like dry conditions like a wood pile, not the moist conditions in your garden beds. I use a lot of triple ground hardwood mulch, don't find any ants in there.

Your hostas are looking great, Renaldo. Sherborne Swift and Ophir especially should be in the Hosta Library.

They all seem to be posing for you, Peggy.

Thanks for checking in, Scooterbear. So sorry your world got plummeted like that. We watched a film clip of baseball sized hail splashing into a lake . . . . that cameraman was risking life and limb to film the destruction in the middle of a tornado.

They all look so clean too. Did you wash them down first? We have spent blossoms, airplanes, and cottony stuff drifting down from the trees everyday. My hostas will all need a bath before another photo session.

I've noticed with potted plants, if a plant isn't growing well, the soil stays wet, i.e, isn't taking up any water or transpiring. So the soil being very wet isn't necessarily the problem, but can be a sympton caused by a different problem.

Do you have any space left for tents in your backyard, Ken?

Some years ago, I purchased an electric chipper from Sears. Worked fine on smaller stuff but choked or jammed on larger pieces. It clogged if too many leaves were added. The following week I returned it. Another time I bought a gas powered chipper at a flea market. When the vendor showed me how it w...

Morning Cindi, Sorry for your loss. My experience has been that I cannot keep hosta in a whiskey barrel or large pot for more than a couple years without replacing the soil medium. It apparently collapses or wears out without ever giving us a warning that it is suffering. Another theory is that duri...

If it was only hostas and Italian food, we have lots of those and that at home. It's the people.