Thoughts off the top of my head: November, 2005
We have had another long warm Fall here. It is always interesting to see which hostas are the last to turn yellow and melt away. The winner this year by far is my own ‘Corkscrew’. It is still green and full of turgor. Last year it looked respectable until the middle of December.
This is particularly gratifying as I have been breeding for “long season” hostas for several years now. The idea is that there are “short season” hostas, those that bloom early, set seed and are ready for their winter’s nap by the first of August here, and there are the late bloomers that need to keep their foliage in good order so that they can produce flowers and seeds in the fall. ‘Corkscrew’ is the champion of the late bloomers.
“Long season” hostas have two strategies to maintain their foliage in good working order. The fragrant flowering hostas which usually bloom in August, produce several flushes of leaves throughout the summer. In fact the first set of H. plantaginea leaves of the season is usually brown and withered by the time the scapes start to push up. These hostas do not try to preserve their foliage until fall, they just make more and more of it as necessarily.
Other “long season” hostas like H. kikutii (‘Red October’) and H. longipes (‘One Man’s Treasure’) Usually only produce one or maybe two flushes of leaves but actively maintain them until late August when the scapes appear. ‘Corkscrew’, a cross of ‘Tardiflora’ and ‘One Man’s Treasure’ blooms in September into October and must maintain its foliage into November for the seeds to fully ripen.
What makes the “long season” hostas really long season is that they also emerge early in the spring. ‘Corkscrew’ will be up in late March here and down in December. That only leaves three months for cold dormancy which is okay because most winters we only have three months of real cold anyway. “Long Season” hostas then may also be hostas with short cold dormancy requirements. While late emerging, early flowering, H. sieboldiana seems to improve with a long cold dormancy, late flowering hostas are often ready to emerge with much less a cold period. All this is probably tied to their native habitats and the length of the growing season there.
“Long season” hostas are ideal for the South where the growing season is long, usually well into October and November. That is why I hybridize for them. They are also wonderful in northern gardens, looking good until the first hard freeze. They may or may not have time to produce seed or even flower north of I-80 if the snows come early but they make excellent garden plants.
Since most all blue hostas have some “short season’ H sieboldiana in their background, they are prime candidates for hybridizing into “long season” hostas. Sometimes through a series of crosses and sometimes through a number of generations, I have been able to create late flowering blue hostas. Many bloom in August and one that we will name in a year or so blooms in September. While creating long lasting garden plants is certainly one goal of this process, my main goal is to have blue hostas stay blue longer, especially in hot summer weather. ‘Blueberry Tart’ our exclusive club hosta, a cross of ‘Blue Cadet’ and ‘Fall Bouquet’, (H. longipes), does seem to stay bluer much longer than ‘Blue Cadet’.
Where does this all end? How long a season can hostas have? Can they be evergreen? Probably not but I do have some ugly little seedlings that only need about three weeks of winter. They do not grow or bloom, or even look well, but there may be the genetic potential in the plant to be evergreen. Evergreen hostas, who knows? Slow growing minis are pretty popular now and if they could be houseplants…who knows!
Voles. When the hosta folks start showing up at the nursery every spring, they always seem surprised that voles have devoured several large clumps of hostas in their garden. They claim that it is always the expensive ones that go first but I know better, voles are equal opportunity herbivores. For many, it is as if the little rodents had spontaneously generated in the garden over the winter.
In fact voles start moving into the garden in late summer much like the mice move into our basement. They are looking for winter housing and a ready supply of food for the two or three generations of ancestors they hope to procreate. I believe a big fat hosta clump provides the perfect cover for them for the winter.
Think about it, from vole eye level. It takes little digging to slide up under that roof of a hosta crown. It must be very dry under there, I do not imagine much rain or snow melt gets through that fleshy crown. There is also food everywhere, roots and crown alike. I envision the little buggers just lying on their backs all winter munching away except when they are doing that procreation thing. Under a large ‘Frances Williams’ there is probably room for Grandma, her kids and their kids, at least until they literally eat themselves out of house and home.
What to do. When the voles move in to the garden in the fall be as inhospitable as possible. Put out some poison right away when you see the first run. We put it down the hole and put a big rock over it to mimic a ‘Frances Williams’ crown and keep the opossums from stealing the bait. The runs will be easy to find as you rake or blow all the fallen leaves from the hosta beds. Removing the leaves will eliminate the protected highway system for the voles and force them to dig their own. If you must mulch, use a thin mulch of pine bark. It is hard for those voles to run under those nuggets.
Look for vole runs along stone walls, house foundations and walls made of cross ties. Voles like the extra cover to live under especially in the winter. These areas are also great sites to put vole feeding stations filled with poison. By the way, if all this poison talk is unsettling, try trapping. Place a mousetrap baited with apple or peanut butter under a heavy clay pot and put it over a hole or near the site of vole activity. You can catch one or more a day. You will also find out how many of those little suckers are living under your hostas.
Finally, the best time to locate where the voles are hiding in your garden is right after the snow starts to melt. Trapped under ground for months or minutes depending on how far North you live, voles are anxious to get out and have a nibble or two of something other than hosta crowns. They will make fresh exit holes and you can trap or poison them with good success at those locations. When spring finally comes, attack with vigor and drive the beasts from the garden. Garden cleanup by hand or with a leaf blower will reveal the runs and also which hostas may need immediate rescuing and repotting.
The key is to be vigilant year round and do not be afraid to kill a few voles. The alternative is removing the food source from the garden that they enjoy the most, and none of us can live without hostas.