by John Ledbury

Created on: January 27, 2010   Last Updated: March 28, 2011

Until 1986, I had no idea what a hosta was. I hadn't had my own garden until then, so I didn't really think much about plants. My interest was cars, and gardening was all new to me. One day I saw a plant that took my breath away, and I had to ask a friend what it was. He said it was a hosta, and that was the start of my love affair with them.

I began collecting them, buying books and finding out everything I could about them. To me they looked far better than bedding plants or any other plants for that matter, and I soon began filling my garden with them.

At the time I was living in Cornwall, in the south west of England. Every week on my day off from my job as a vehicle mechanic, my friend and I would go out to nursery's all over Cornwall, looking for different hostas to add to my garden collection.

Like most other people I too had a slug and snail problem, but I managed to really cut back on the damage they caused, by using tried and tested methods, and some ideas of my own.

Some times we would go further away in my search for new varieties. It wasn't long before my garden was filling up nicely.

As the years passed by, my collection grew to such an extent that feeding and watering and caring for them through the summer became demanding, but never a burden. Sometimes, people would ask if I was selling them, but I told them firmly that I wasn't.

The time came in 1995, when I had to move from Cornwall to a town in Dorset, some 130 miles away in the mid south. To transport all of the hostas, and all of the tools etc, I had to hire a large truck, and a smaller van. I also had a fine library of Hosta books from the USA, from people who really knew about hostas.

The garden in my new Dorset home was soon full of hostas. In the ground, in pots, and in large containers. Within a year my hosta collection had seriously increased, and I had run out of space. The time came when I had to thin my collection down a bit. Strangely, so that I could get more, but of varieties that I hadn't already got.

I was working in a factory in Weymouth, on the south coast. One of the shops that I called at most days had trays of assorted plants outside for sale. Many holiday makers seemed to be buying plants to take home as souvenir's of their holiday.

I asked the owner if he was interested in taking some of my hostas to sell, if there was a market for them. I did a deal over the price, which he was happy with. He said he would give them a try, but doubted they would sell, because of the

• 1
• 2
• 3
• Next Page >>