the amazing hosta

What was I thinking 23 years ago? We moved into a rambling old house in Defiance, Ohio, and I proceeded to yank out the hostas in the back yard. They were an oddity to me: weird, spiky shoots poking out of the ground by mid-April.

Where were hostas in my youth? I roamed our yard and woods as a girl, never spotting a single hosta. Pity the lack of them.

In googling around, I learned that hostas originated in Asia, but good grief, were brought to Europe in the 1700's so surely they've been in the U.S. awhile. Just not in my plant-o-sphere.

Now my four babies are grown and I marvel at my babies in the flower beds: hostas in various stages of earth-poking, in fresh kitchen-wall-greens and rich blue-greens. Broad leaves and variegated slim leaves. Tiny new babies seeking a place in the garden, and granddaddy hostas enjoying their established spots.

By July they will be glorious: a show of full foliage, overlapping and bursting over one another. And finally, their blooms will rise on swaying stems in the August breeze.

If you're prone to googling and hosta-learning, there is -for real - an American Hosta Society and evidently the hosta was named after an Austrian botanist, Nicholas Thomas Host.

Hail Mr. Host!