Hosta   pot   buryer

I’m doing what I didn’t want to do—putting hostas in pots and burying them in the ground.

Now hostas are one of my favorite shade perennials. In fact, several years ago one of my friends even dubbed me Hosta Mama.

 I love their beautiful foliage and their range in size from six inches to over four feet tall, depending on the variety.

For years I had always planted my hostas directly in the ground like a person normally would and each year they would get bigger and bigger.

And then over the years I started noticing that some of the hostas were nice and big one year and the next year I could hardly find them or at least they were much smaller in size.

This went on for several years until one year nearly a third of my hostas disappeared over the winter. As they started coming out of their winter dormancy, I started looking where they had been and discovered a depression (not only in me but also in the ground) and a tunnel where the plant had been or where a portion of the rootstock was left that had been gnawed on.

After finally realizing I had a problem and doing some fast and furious research, I discovered that hostas are a favorite food of voles—not moles.

Voles look similar to moles but eat only plant material, not insects like moles. Voles are vegetarian and are said to eat their weight in plants every 24 hours.

So now I am planting my hostas in pots either sunk in the ground or in a decorative planter above ground.

It’s a lot more work but since I am a “hostaholic” I guess it’s worth it.

I just thank God, my Heavenly Gardener, that I finally found out what was destroying my hostas.

Took me a long time to find out. Glad it hasn’t taken me that long to find out what’s really important in life though—like delighting in God’s love for me every day and trying to give back a little of this love to others and to God too, of course.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should hot perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16 KJV)

Love in Jesus,

God’s “hosta-loving” servant,
Liz Ray

Written May 24, 2012