When I began growing hostas, I used the plant’s size to determine where I placed it in my border. I didn’t think about how the hostas interacted with each other or with the annuals and perennials around them. One day, I replaced a green-and-white hosta growing near a yellow daylily with a gold-variegated one. I was amazed by how much the color echo between the gold foliage and the yellow flower improved my design.

As easy as hostas are to grow, they can be a bit tricky to work into a design, especially if you want them to be the star attraction. I’ve noticed that a plain, common hosta can look stunning when it is planted among the right plants and an expensive, showy hosta can look disappointing when it clashes with its neighbors.

The key to getting the most from your hostas is using the concepts of balance and accent as you weave them into your garden design. Balancing the colors and sizes of your hostas will help them work with the rest of your design. Accenting them with the appropriate companion plants will help them get the attention they deserve.

One common mistake gardeners make when designing with hostas is to try to create interest with a heavy use of showy gold or variegated hostas. Because these plants pop out at you, too many of them make a garden seem chaotic rather than harmonious. To balance your design, use mainly green, blue, or subtly variegated hostas. It’s easy to balance these hostas because they are unlikely to clash with other plants around them or clamor for attention. You can use green, blue, and lightly variegated hostas almost anywhere to support other plants, add structure, and make the garden lush. These hostas have a quiet presence. The more of them you have, the more restful your garden will be.

Another reason strongly variegated or yellow hostas can be hard to design with is because they catch and hold the eye. Most hostas with white variegation make great focal points, but not all gold hostas do. The brightness of their leaves depends greatly on how much sun they get. In full shade, gold hostas tend to turn chartreuse. They are at their best when grown in morning sun because it provides enough light for their gold color to develop without scorching their leaves.

The leaves of many gold hostas, especially when they are grown in some sun, are brighter than the leaves of blue and green hostas. While your eye will pass easily over dark foliage, it will be drawn to the fabulous bronze color of a gold hosta. So if gold hostas are scattered around the garden, they will look like yellow dots, making the garden appear busy. Instead, place them in small groups to create drifts of gold. The eye will then move easily from one to the other because they are linked by color and planted close together.

There is wide color variation among gold hostas, and some may look better together than others. You may have to experiment to find pleasing combinations.

You can also combine hostas with the same leaf color, but make sure they differ in another characteristic. If you want to plant two blue hostas close to each other, select one that has large leaves and one that has small leaves. Or try one that has heart-shaped leaves with one that has long, lance-shaped leaves. If hostas are too much alike, they will look boring together, but if they have nothing in common, they will merely look like isolated plants.

The best combinations feature hostas different enough to be interesting yet similar enough to look like they belong together.

Because most hostas form a dense mound of cascading leaves, they have a heavy, solid look that should be made lighter by fine-textured companions. What could be more dramatic than a lacy maidenhair fern (Adiantum pedatum, Zones 3–8) resting against a hosta with thick, corrugated leaves? The contrast in size makes the hosta look even bolder. The garden then becomes more engaging because one wants to pause and look more closely at the interaction between the two plants.

Ferns are the best fine-textured companions for hostas in deep shade. If the hostas are growing in partial sun, astilbes, goatsbeards (Aruncus dioicus and cvs., Zones 3–7), and bugbanes (Cimicifuga spp. and cvs., Zones 3–8) can balance the hostas’ coarse foliage.