GREAT EXPECTATIONS. Our Next Meeting July 15, 6:30 pm Roth Daylilies 140 Roth Auction Road East Peoria

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1 GREAT EXPECTATIONS central illinois hosta society July volume 20, issue 5 Debbie s Dirt "Every garden is unique with a multitude of choices in soils, plants and themes. Finding your garden theme is as easy as seeing what brings a smile to your face." Teresa Watkins Our gardens are a reflection of our personality and an extension of our soul. So it gives me great pleasure when visiting other private and public gardens and delighting in what I find there. Our June meeting held at the Stein s home in Morton was everything I expected and so much more. Janet and Steve have designed a lovely garden landscape that reflects her artistic and creative talents and his ability to take her ideas and build something awesome, like Cinderella s coach. Their pristine and well-manicured beds displayed a variety of lovely hostas and companion plants. I marveled at her unique plant labels made from granite and her love for tea parties. I plan to go back and take lots of pictures and try to figure out how to get on her tea party guest list! And a special thanks to our friends, Ron and Donna Dieters, who brought annuals to share with everyone in attendance. We appreciate your thoughtfulness and generosity. I mentioned at the June meeting that my husband I had recently visited relatives in Springfield, MO. While there, we travelled to the 114 acre site of the Springfield Botanical Gardens, but only had time to visit the Hosta Garden. This lush garden, which is maintained by the Greater Ozark Hosta Society (GOHS), showcases an events area (for weddings, photo ops, etc.) and a display area, both filled with beautiful, mature hostas and companion plants. Because of GOHS efforts, this garden received accreditation as an American Hosta Society Display Garden in If you find yourself in southwest Missouri, take the time to visit. More information regarding the Botanical Garden can be found at or the GOHS website at And if you have time, take a short drive west of Springfield and visit Hilltop Farm which specializes in hostas, companion shade plants and perennials. I look forward to seeing all of you at Roth s Daylilies on July 15. By then, these perennials, with flowers of highly diverse color and form and companions to our beloved hostas, will be in full bloom. So please join us for a fun evening of refreshment, fellowship and education as we learn more about daylilies. Keep on digging in the dirt and don t forget to water, Debbie McCollum, CIHS President Our Next Meeting July 15, 6:30 pm Roth Daylilies 140 Roth Auction Road East Peoria In 2009 I visited a garden that contained 800 different varieties of daylilies. I left with 25 daylilies and a very happy heart! Again the next summer I visited that garden in Taylorville, IL. and once again I left with 25 varieties. As I was leaving with my new beauties the owner took me aside and said, "Theresa you should just buy them all". My reply was, okay Bob! That very fall my husband and I started the very long adventure of moving over 800 large clumps of daylilies. We tilled and amended the already very beautiful soil to prepare for the new plants. We moved 50 to 60 clumps each trip. After 2 years they were all moved to their new home and Roth Daylily Farm was born! There are now very close to 2000 varieties and many seedlings. Of course I also love hosta and hope to move many of my favorites from my home in Morton to the farm. At this time the hostas are outnumbered! This will be my 4th bloom season and each year I will be adding hosta and many other of my favorite perennials. Information for Leaf Contest: Bluest leaf Most unusual white or yellow centered leaf Longest leaf, from tip of the cut end of the petiole to the leaf tip. Largest leaf Smallest mature leaf It will be helpful if the name of your entry in written on the leaf with Sharpie or other marker. Directions from I-74, take the Pinecrest Exit (98) south to East Muller Road and turn left. Proceed east for 1 mile and turn left onto 140 Roth Auction Road 1

2 Hosta of the Month Hosta Island Charm - It makes a small mound of white (cream) centered foliage. At the beginning of summer it has pale purple flowers. Hosta yingeri - It is a species hosta with dark green leaves and good substance. It makes a small to medium mound of shiny leaves with flower scapes in late August to September of dark purple flowers. Hosta Feather Boa - It forms a dense, low mound of yellow foliage that turns chartreuse by July. Leaves are slightly wavy and it has attractive purple flowers in July. Hosta September Sun - A green margined sport of August Moon that has a fast growth rate. It becomes slightly corrugated with age and makes an attractive medium large sized mound. Lavender flowers are in early August. Hosta Queen of the Seas - This is a large mound of heavily rippled, blue green foliage, it has a vase shape and good substance. It won a "best in show" when it was introduced by Mildred Seaver at the AHS Convention in Hosta Tranquility - A sport of Aspen Gold, this hosta has a thick blue-green leaf with a gold to chartreuse margin. It makes a medium size mound and it has lavender flowers in July. The Hosta Library If you would like to check out a magazine or book from the Hosta Library, see Ella Maxwell at a meeting or call her at CIHS Calendar If you are interested in opening your garden for a meeting in 2015, please contact Gloria Hicks, Jeanette Smith or a board member. July 15, 6:30 pm Roth Daylilies 140 Roth Auction Road, East Peoria, Illinois August 19, 5:45/6:30 pm Auction Freedom Hall 349 W. Birchwood Street, Morton September 16 Banquet Coyote Creek June 13, 2015 CIHS Garden Walk June 18, 2015 American Hosta Society Convention Raleigh North Carolina June 27, 2015 Bus Trip Officers President Deb McCollum debmccollum@gmail.com Vice Presidents Gloria Hicks, Jeanette Smith , jameskhicks@hotmail.com cjsmith119@gmail.com Second Vice Presidents Shirley Metz, Donna Cothrell , skmetz43@gmail.com dkcothrell@hotmail.com Third Vice President Deb Schoedel parttime94@aol.com Recording Secretary Sue Eckhoff gardenermom22@gmail.com Corresponding Secretary Maggie Keesey magskeesey@gmail.com Treasurer Dan McConnell drdtm@mtco.com To join: Central Illinois Hosta Society $10/year, form on back cover Midwest Reg. Hosta Society $20/2 years, Send dues to: Kristine James, Membership 523 E. Calhoun Street Woodstock, IL American Hosta Society $30 individual, $57/2 years $34 family, $62/2 years Send dues to: Sandie Markland AHS Membership Secretary Post Office Box 7539 Kill Devil Hills, NC

3 Auction August 19 Freedom Hall, Morton F or the upcoming Auction, we are asking for donations from members; donations can be anything from hosta or companion plants to yard art or gift certificates. We will have 30 hostas that you are all growing For those of you growing these very special hosta, you can submit your guesses of what hosta you might have. There are prizes for any correct guess that are turned in by August 15 th. You can Shirley or Donna at skmetz43@gmail.com or dkcothrell@hotmail.com. Please submit only one guess, so study it well before you turn it in no partial credit will awarded!!! Annual Hosta Banquet Sign up Soon!!! Date: Tuesday, Sept. 16 th Time: Cocktails & check-in 5:30 pm; dinner at 6:30 Place: Coyote Creek Golf Club, near Bartonville, 8201 West Lancaster Road, Cost: $35/person Our Annual Hosta Banquet will be held at Coyote Creek Golf Course, same as past two years. We will have hosta from Q &Z Nursery for everyone attending. The guest speaker will be Jeff Miller from Land of the Giants hosta nursery, in Melton Wisconsin. We visited this nursery last year on the Bus Trip. He will also be bringing plants to give away! Sign up at the meetings or contact Shirley Metz ( ; skmetz43@gmail.com) or Donna Cothrell ( ; dkcothrell@hotmail.com). Membership Directory Poll A s mentioned at our June meeting, we are taking a poll to find out if you are interested in a CIHS Membership Directory, provided in paper form, which would include member s name and phone number. Also let us know if you would like us to include physical address and address. This information will not be made public on our website and if one is printed, we would ask the membership to respect each other s privacy. Please Debbie at debmccollum@gmail.com to voice your opinion or contact one of the Board members. Thanks for your consideration we really appreciate your input! Solberg Hostas are here!!!! If you purchased Solberg Hosta(s) this spring from the Society and were unable to attain at the June meeting, please contact Maggie at magskeesey@gmail.com to make arrangements for pick-up. Should we cut those Mike Pula flower scapes? A rguments have raged for years about whether and when to remove your hosta flower scapes. Some gardeners trim the scapes before they bloom. And some leave the scapes for most of the growing season. If you listen to pros and cons, there are good reasons in both camps. Leaf lovers want to remove the distraction of blooms while hybridizers want to wait for pollinated seed pods. I stand between the two, satisfied with a happy medium. I prefer to cut the flower scapes from most of my hostas shortly after they ve shown their fascinating form and paraded their colors. That way I get to enjoy the aerial show and avoid the fallout of short-lived and often-sticky flowers, which tend to plaster the leaves in the prime of their lives. With a few exceptions, hostas in the Mid-South bloom for two to three weeks from May to October. If you re like me, you tire of trimming and let those late-coming scapes go dormant with foliage at season s end. The bloom period for the greatest number of my hostas is in June. Hence, I liberate hostas of their scapes prior to 3

4 Independence Day. Though most of the ones with fragrant flowers put off bloom until later in July or early August, I m always impressed with earlier-blooming varieties. The flowers that festoon these favorites come in vivid shades from purple to lavender and in varying shapes from bells to bouquets. Some of my leafy lovelies are uninspiring with only a few spires while others catch my attention with dozens of sparklers. Imagine my surprise when I came upon Birchwood Parky s Gold, one of my earliest acquisitions. As a cultivar of nakianna, a species common to Korea and Japan, BPG has always been beautiful bloomer. This year, however, an unusually cool and wet spring swelled my 20-year-old clump to almost 4 feet wide and capped it with an immense shower of flowers. The contrast of lavender over gold was spectacular! I hated to lop the blooms, but it was time to trim. As I cut, I counted and counted and counted. I ve never had a single clump with more than three-dozen bloom scapes, let alone four dozen. To be exact, I counted 55! That compares with 96 removed from a drift of four floriferous Undulata clumps across the front of our house. Bob Olson, editor of The Hosta Journal, cited Birchwood Parky s Gold years ago as one of the finest flowering hostas because of its dense foliage and multiple scapes well above the leaves. It makes a great floral centerpiece, he said. Other descendants of nakianna also rank high in flower power. Notable are Blue Cadet, Golden Tiara and Sweet Home Chicago. Once the early summer blooms were history, I waited in anticipation for the arrival and aroma provided by my plantaginea descendants, including such favorites as Royal Standard, Fragrant Bouquet, Sugar and Cream, So Sweet, Guacamole and Avocado. I love the double blooms of my 4½-footwide Aphrodite, but she hasn t bloomed the past two years because I moved her to a protected corner of the patio that doesn t get enough direct sunlight. Next year, I ll give the old girl a coming out party. Later blooming non-fragrant varieties are equally enjoyable, particularly Urajiro Hachijo, a mutation from the Japanese wild that offers purple-streaked flowers on blue-green scapes over wavy-edged green leaves. Her name in English should be Gorgeous! setting seed for propagation. Scapes contribute to the plant s photosynthesis, so let them grow, welcome the blooms, wait for the plant set a few seed pods and then cut the stalks. That way you and the bees can enjoy the floral show. And, once you remove the scapes, your hosta can move on to its next phase, directing energy toward root growth. By Larry Tucker, reprinted from a recent issue of the Mid-South Hosta Society newsletter Hosta Spotlight O ne of the raffle hostas this month, Hosta yingeri is a species of hosta named for horticulturist, Barry Yinger, who discovered it growing on a remote island of Korea in Plants associated with H. yingeri are distinct from other species in their thick, succulent leaves, which have a very shiny, flat, upper surface with inconspicuous veins and have a "polished'' surface on the back. Leaf shape and size is somewhat variable in different examples. Opening in mid-late summer, its pale purple to lavender flowers are evenly spaced around the scape; which is unlike most other species which have the flowers pointed in one direction. On the following page, I have listed seedlings, crosses and cultivars, associated with H. yingeri. My recommendation on when to cut the scapes echoes Bob Solberg s advice. Don t interrupt the plant s growth cycle by cutting the scapes too early, he says, because hostas perform best when they re allowed to fulfill their purpose of flowering for pollination and 4

5 White Oak Nursery Specializing in Hostas and Daylilies Internet and mail order only. Please visit our website for an online catalog of offerings. We have 150 varieties of Hostas for 2014 and will be adding an additional 100 varieties for We are giving away a copy of Mark Zilis' The Hostapedia, a $79.00 value. Orders totaling more than $50.00 will be eligible for the drawing to be held in June, White Oak Nursery Washburn, IL (309) hostas@whiteoaknursery.com Hosta yingeri seedlings, crosses & cultivars H. 'Blue Haired Lady' H. 'Celtic Uplands' H. 'City Slicker' H. 'Cosmic Blue' H. 'Crystal Chimes' H. 'Dark Vader' H. 'Green Jeans' H. 'Harpoon' H. 'Irish Longlegs' H. 'Kermit' H. 'Kiwi Fresh Salad' H. 'Kiwi Leap Frog' H. 'Korean Snow H. 'Lakeside Looking Glass' H. 'Mystic Star' H. 'Old Yeller' H. 'Potomac Pride' H. 'Quill' H. 'Runaround Sue' H. 'Southern Gold' H. 'Sun Catcher' H. 'Sunny Side Up' H. 'Swamp Thing' H. 'Sweet Tater Pie' H. 'Whiskey Sour 5

6 Central Illinois Hosta Society P.O. Box 3098 Peoria, IL First Class Postage Check us out! For information regarding dues or membership, contact Kathy Allen at or Newsletter Deadline: 20 th of the preceding month Submit items for publication to: Bob Streitmatter CIHS Membership Form (please print) Name(s) Address City State Zip Phone How did you find us? Friend/Word of Mouth Website Newsletter Event/Presentation Facebook Newspaper (which one) Other 6 Dues are $10/year: New Renewal Amount enclosed Make check payable to CIHS and mail check/form to: Central Illinois Hosta Society, P.O. Box 3098, Peoria, IL