Hostas love the shady habitat

Gardening

May 26

What do you do when you have an area of your yard that gets a lot of shade? Plant hostas!

Be careful, though. We learned the hard way that hostas are not pet friendly, so we fenced off this area of the yard to protect our Italian Greyhounds. (This was after a couple trips to the vet with a very sick pup last year. #notgood)

Now protected behind a short fence, our hostas are blooming as they enjoy the shadiest part of our yard under a large Bradford Pear tree.

The Hostas are always the first to green up in the spring and the first to put on blooms.

Hostas are easy to grow. When planting, put the lighter foliage plants in more sun than the dark foliage plants, which enjoy more shade than sun. They can tolerate almost any type of soil, though when planting in the beginning, they’ll thrive in a slightly acidic pH soil.

Make sure your hostas have good drainage. You don’t want them sitting in heaps of water, especially during their dormant season. This can cause crown rot, which is a soil-borne fungus that can survive in the soil indefinitely.

Once your hostas are established, fertilize each spring. It’s not necessary to fertilize them any more than this, though if you choose to fertilize them in the summer, that’s fine, too.

Just as Italian Greyhounds find these plants to be quite tasty, so do deer. They obviously don’t adversely affect deer like they do dogs, so if you’re in a deer-heavy environment, plant some daffodils by the hostas. This will help keep the deer at bay.