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!
2 comments:
Some of those even traveled from the lost land of Ostrander many years ago!
:-)
-D
Your hosta pics are pretty and I love the shade of green you picked to paint your kitchen!
Take care
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