Where should I buy hostas now?

[Anonymous]

I live in DC and am looking to add 4 hostas to add in small pocket beds in my rowhouse back patio. I went to Gingko Gardens yesterday and they had some hostas that looked fine, but I've seen advice on here to order online from a store like Bluestone Perennials, because the quality is better. I'm not crazy about the environmental impact of boxing and shipping plants from Ohio, though. Any advice?

[Anonymous]

We get them when neighbors divide and when we divide we give them to neighbors. Check a list serves like DC Urban Gardeners or the like.

Otherwise, absolutely make the trip to Happy Hollows nursery in Cockeysville, MD just west of B'more. She's "the hosta lady." You'll be amazed.

[Anonymous]

Behnke in Beltsville. I was just there yesterday and I think hostas were 20 percent off. It is a great nursery (and if Ginkgo Gardens is your regular nursery, you're probably my neighbor! The trip to Behnke will take about 20 minutes).

[Anonymous]

Most nurseries will have them as long as you aren’t looking for an obscure variety. I don’t think it matters much where you get them, they are very hardy. Once you get 4 you will have a lifetime supply. We split ours all the time.

[Anonymous]

This is OP; thanks everyone, and especially to the poster who suggested Behnkes -- I went there thus morning and got two Empress Wu hostas. Driving home o starts getting nervous about how big they might get, but they wee the ones whose foliage I liked the best. Hopefully I can divide them to keep them to a manageable size in their small bed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is OP; thanks everyone, and especially to the poster who suggested Behnkes -- I went there thus morning and got two Empress Wu hostas. Driving home o starts getting nervous about how big they might get, but they wee the ones whose foliage I liked the best. Hopefully I can divide them to keep them to a manageable size in their small bed.

Dividing hostas is about as easy as it gets (liriope is also easy to split) both are very hardy and hard to kill.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: I'm not crazy about the environmental impact of boxing and shipping plants from Ohio, though.

But driving 30 miles round trip didn't concern you?

A truck holds about 45,000 pounds of freight and gets about 6 miles per gallon, so shipping a 1 pound box from Ohio would use about 0.17% of a gallon of fuel. You used around 600 times that amount of gasoline to drive to Beltsville and back!