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| Hosta 'Brim Cup' |
Of course, many gardeners will know that hostas are slug magnets. Hostas are lucky if they get a chance to throw out leaves, never mind have perfect leaves. I plan to grow mine in a pot, like a statement, (I keep having ideas for 'statements' as if I had a garden large enough for such grand ideas!). In a pot it will be raised above the ground and surrounded by sharp grit that, hopefully, will deter slugs.
Hostas are clump-forming hardy herbaceous perennials so although it dies back in autumn and looks rather miserable it will wake up after winter and look lively again in spring. (Me too!)
It says on the label that Hosta 'Brim Cup' has: beautiful chartreuse edged, cup-shaped leaves and medium, bell-shaped, lavender flowers. It requires full sun or partial shade in a well-drained soil. It has a height of 40cm and a spread of 90cm (16in x 36in).
Actually, although the label says it has chartreuse edged leaves (green tinged with yellow), it looks more like a yellow cream to me. Whatever.
I used to grow a number of different kinds of hostas when I had a bigger sloping garden where the bottom of the slope was damp and shady and they did very well there. You can see some of them in the picture below. The one near the edge of the pond looked lovely, I think. As well as creating the garden from scratch, I built the pond myself: dug it out and lined it, put in the pump for the fountain. planted it and put in lots of fish. I also did the crazy paving which nearly killed me. I wouldn't have the energy for such a project now. It's all I can do to cut the lawn!
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| Pond surrounded by sandstone crazy-paving. Alpines are planted in the cracks and crevices in the paving. The pond is bordered by astilbe and iris (left) and ferns and hosta (right). There are more hostas and astilbe at the bottom of the garden under the young Prunus Serrula (RHS link) |