Too many hostas?

When it's no longer possible to tell Big Daddy and Big Mama apart, you know you've gone to hosta hell.

In my garden it's a sultry summer day, the kind of day that brings to mind Elizabeth Taylor flouncing around in her slip in the movie Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and sassing off to big daddy, played by Burl Ives.

I'll tell you, I think I'd rather be having a mint julep with Paul Newman, even though he was a no good lay-a-bout in the movie, than staggering around my garden trying to tell my hostas apart.

I know hosta Big Daddy is somewhere at the base of a tippy mountain ash tree in my garden, but there's another similar, yet not identical, blue hosta nearby. The tags, hastily slammed in the ground some years ago, have migrated downhill. The Big Daddy tag is now face down next to a sneezeweed.

So I checked the catalogue of the Plant Delight's Nursery in Raleigh, North Carolina. It's very helpful since there is a colour photo of every hosta they carry. Big Daddy and Big Mama look alike in the photos and the descriptions for both read, "nice, vigorous hosta with puckered blue leaves...". I guess they were running short on adjectives when they penned that text down in Raleigh.

Tony Avent is the president of Plant Delights, and he is famous for saying, "If you can't tell your hostas apart from 20 feet - you've got too many."

It's easy to have too many hostas. There are now over 4000 types available, but even enthused Tony Avent admits there are probably just 500 of those worth having in your garden. One of them won't be Out House Delight - raised by Avent, and labeled one of the ugliest hostas ever.

Whatever those two blue ones are in my yard - I'd vouch for their performance. They are solid as a cast iron pot, with nary a nibble showing from slugs.

I have another blue beauty in the garden that I've been jabbering about for ages. In even years I identify it as hosta Halcyon; in odd years I call it hosta Krossa Regal. When I checked it against catalogue pictures today, I'd say it was Krossa Regal. Here is a hosta that makes all the top ten lists. It is a graceful vase-shaped plant that can occupy a commanding position in the garden. The lavender flowers will rise up above the foliage and hit a height of four feet in late July. It is slug resistant, and those perfect pointed leaves can be cut and added to flower arrangements where they will remain fresh for a week. Hosta Krossa Regal is hardy from Zones 3-8. It's dependable and available, and not as dear in price as many newer hosta introductions.

In the same bed with Krossa Regal I have two more hostas with dubious monikers. By scrabbling underneath the leaf litter I found a tag for one called Paul's Glory. The other unknown hosta has similar markings, but in reverse.

I know I got them from Jack Kent at The Potting Shed in Cayuga and I trust his memory and powers of observation. Before he started his little specialist nursery, he spent some years breeding goats and judging them at shows. He also clocked some time as a delivery driver and deli owner, where he had to keep the cappicola separated from the mortadella. So these bobsy-twins hostas were no challenge for him.

"I'm sure that other hosta with blue centres is 'Tokudama Flavocircinalis'." Whatever you say, Jack.

I figure I have about six more weeks to identify all my hostas. In August, my garden will be toured (inspected might be a better word) by arboretum directors from across North America. I know what those garden tours can be like. You'd rather see a stiff drink waiting for you than another rudbeckia 'Goldsturm'.

So maybe if I plant a big jug of mint juleps in a shady spot, no one will care a fig if Big Daddy and Big Mama are cross breeding, and Paul's Glory really might be Old Glory. All I know is that big, bold hosta foliage calms down a garden suffering from too many plants with teensy leaves. And they create the illusion, however fragile, that absent-minded plant collectors have the touch of the artist.