If you’re looking for sun tolerant hostas with beautiful blooms, here are a few of our favorites to add to your garden. Plus, learn these seven hostas care tips to keep them looking their best!
How to Care for Sun Tolerant Hostas with Beautiful Flowers
While most hostas are shade loving plants, there are some full sun hostas. In general, hostas that flower also have some sun tolerance as well. If you’d like to add sun tolerant hostas with beautiful flowers, here’s what you need to know.
Hosta plants come in many sizes, shades, and varieties, but blooming hostas with fragrant flowers can be a gardener’s favorite. Blooming hostas don’t just add color, but they add interest and depth to your landscape for the entire growing season as well. When cared for properly, blooming hostas can provide garden appeal for years to come. Here are some helpful tips on how to care for blooming hostas, so you can enjoy these plants in your own landscaping design!
Full sun hostas
A note that full sun in hostas doesn’t mean you can plant them in spot that gets zero shade. Full sun hostas are more generally accepted to be sun tolerant. A spot that gets morning sun but provides some afternoon shade may be your best bet and you might end up with a little bit of sunburning as you can see in the picture above. You’ll have to experiment to see if your hostas can tolerate full sun, but in general, these are the best sun tolerant hostas:
- Rhino Hosta – with extremely thick, cupped, and corrugated chartreuse and blue leaves, the Rhino Hosta is often considered a must have hosta! Bonus points for being slug resistant if slugs are a problem in your area!
- Thunderbolt Hosta – large hostas with extremely wide blue-green and yellow leaves. They’re also slug resistant.
- Liberty Hosta – This giant sun tolerant hosta has leaves with blue-green centers and a neon yellow margin.
- Fried Bananas Hosta – This lovely hosta can tolerate a lot of sun which helps it achieve its bright golden color. They also have lovely fragrant blooms in the summer.
- Garden Delight Hosta – This hosta is a very common plant in Eastern Iowa and we have several along our barn. They have and lovely medium sized green leaves with creamy white margins and pale lavender flowers appear in August.
- Hosta plantaginea – This hosta has beautiful heart shaped, apple green leaves and some of the most fragrant flowers of all the hostas.
Hostas with beautiful blooms
Hostas with beautiful blooms
Lots of people love hosta leaves. But hosta flowers? You either love them or hate them – I know gardeners in both camps. Elephant ear hostas, fire and ice hostas, and guacamole hostas will all provide you with colorful blooms. It can be hard to know which type of hosta produces which flower because many gardeners cut them off before they bloom!
Favorite types of hostas that have beautiful flowers include:
- Elephant ear hostas – These giant hostas are some of my favorite! I typically don’t think of flowers on elephant ear hostas, but they do have pretty white flowers!
- Fire and ice hostas – The white leaves rimmed with green are also very beautiful garden additions and its purple flowers are stunning!
- Guacamole hostas – These hostas have apple green centers rimmed with dark green and tall white flowers.
- Blue Mouse Ears Plantain Lily – these gorgeous miniature hostas have small heart shaped leaves of soft blue-gray with faint white edge in early spring. They also have beautiful purple flowers.
To keep your sun tolerant hostas and blooming hostas in the best shape, here are seven hosta care tips you need to know.
1. Provide some shade.
Even hostas that tolerate sun however, prefer to have a cool down period from the afternoon sun. Plant your blooming hostas where they will get afternoon shade and have the chance to recover from the heat. The blooms will appreciate this as well, and you will experience less browning on the foliage.
2. Keep the water coming.
In order to create those gorgeous blooms, hostas will need at least 2 inches of water per week. If you aren’t getting this in a weekly rainfall, be sure you water appropriately. Apply the water directly at the base of the plant so you don’t burn any foliage.
3. Mulch to keep roots cool.
A cool plant is a healthy, blooming plant. Apply mulch around the base of your hostas to help keep moisture in and help keep the roots cool. This will allow the plant to bloom to its max! Reapply mulch as needed throughout the season as rain and wear can cause it to disperse away from the plant base.
4. Dividing hostas.
Hostas grow fast, and this means they can quickly become overcrowded. When this happens the plants can smother each other and growth can become stunted. In order to give them the room they need, divide plants as needed so each original plant is at least 2 feet apart. The best time to divide hostas is in the spring or early fall. When you divide, try to take as much of the rootball with you as you can.
5. Remove spent blooms.
As your blooming hostas start to put on a show, remove dead foliage as you see it. This will help the plant direct the nutrients to where it needs it most. Simply toss the dead foliage into your compost bin when done.
6. Attract pollinators.
Bees, birds, and butterflies will love the blooms on your hostas. By choosing brightly blooming hostas that grow a trumpet shape bloom, you will attract more of these pollinators. These pollinators can help spread the plant to other areas of the yard and neighborhood. Pollinators are attracted to purple blooms especially, so guacamole hostas are ideal.
7. Be patient.
Your hostas may not bloom during the first or even second year. If you don’t see blooms right away, don’t panic. As long as it is a blooming hosta, the flowers will show up.
Consider these tips on how to grow sun tolerant hostas with beautiful blooms, and see how fun and easy it can be to enjoy these colorful, leafy plants in your garden and landscaping design. What’s your favorite sun tolerant hosta?
If you liked these tips on full sun hostas, you might like these posts too:
5 Easy Tips to Keep Your Fall Mums Looking Their Best
Poinsettia care tips for beautiful flowers
Grow a beautiful and coloring cutting flower container garden