Wild Ginger
$15.00The native ground cover for dry shade under maples, where almost nothing else will go.
Hosta 'Halcyon'
Hosta × tardiana
$18.001 gal52 on the bench
The best blue hosta there is, and thick enough in the leaf that slugs mostly give up.
We don't sell online — plants travel badly and we'd rather you saw what you're buying. Ring 705-555-0126 and we'll hold it at the till for 48 hours.
About this plant
Most blue hostas fade to green by July. Halcyon holds its colour into August because the waxy coating on the leaf is thicker — which is also why slugs find it harder work than the thin-leaved varieties.
It wants shade to keep the blue. In more than about two hours of direct sun the wax breaks down and you get a green hosta, which is a perfectly nice thing but not what you paid for.
Deer eat hostas. If you have deer and you want hostas, you need a fence or a spray programme; there is no resistant variety, whatever the tag says.
Looking after it
- Water
- Consistent moisture; they sulk when dry
- Soil
- Rich and humusy. Compost every spring
- Slugs
- Iron phosphate bait in April before they get going
- Division
- Every five years, early spring, before leaves unfurl
Plant it with
Serviceberry
$145.00A small native tree that earns its space four times a year — and the berries are worth eating.
Ostrich Fern
$17.00Fiddleheads in May, a metre and a half of green architecture by July.