Hosta Help

thanks Shiney ... have bookmarked the site and will definately go there

 

I am also having problems with some of my Hostas leaves going yellow at the edges . They are in containers , in a fairly shadey spot . I do water them to keep the soil moist and feed with tomato feed. The same as I have done for years ! I just removed the faded flower stalks 10 days ago. Now the leaves are yellowing like its autumn ( my virginia creeper also thinks its autumn:wallbang: ) Am I not caring for the Hosta correctly ? Is anyone else having plants going into Autumn mode 6 - 8 weeks early

 

there have been lots of reports of people thinking that autumn/winter is coming much sooner this year ... think we may have another very cold winter this year :(

 

Thanks for the plant suggestion dim i will definately be looking into those. One thing i wanted to ask is what is a good all round fertiliser for hostas ie compost etc?? like i said i am going to add a few in a shadier spot that i have prepared and would like to get the soil as good as possible.

Kind regards,
Kris.

 

Hi Kris ... this is what I have been using lately on most plants/shrubs (except the acid loving plants):

dig a fairly deep wide hole ...

in a bucket, add a mixture of John Innes #3 with farmyard manure and some topsoil taken from the hole you have dug (60% John Innes, 20% manure and 20% topsoil) ...

add a handfull of blood, bone, fishmeal, a little superphosphate and some miracle Gro slow release fertilizer pellets

mix all these ingredients then add some to the hole ... measure to ensure that the plant will be at the right planting height .... gently tease the bottom of the roots ...

add some rootgrow in the bottom of the hole (I have only started using rootgrow in the past few weeks.. read instructions on the pack of how much to use... I use a little more than suggested) ...

place the plant ontop of the rootgrow and fill the hole with the remaining compost/manure mixture, and press to firm

I then add some additional miracle gro pellets on the top around the plant and cover with some manure ontop as a mulch, .... then I water well ...

I find the john Innes #3 to be a heavy type compost in the beginning i.e. it takes a while for the water to seep through, but after a few weeks, drainage improves as it breaks down

perhaps a little overboard, but thats the way I do it and it works OK (so far)

when planting palms such as fortuneii, I tend to dig a hole as deep as I can and approx 1 meter square ... I use the same mixture as above, but add perlite and vermiculite to the mixture to assist with drainage as they do not like waterlogged holes