Last week I was photographing a garden with lots of hostas, and the designer asked, “Are the flowers OK? Do you need us to cut them off before you take pictures?” Evidently, some folks really dislike the look of hosta flowers. How do you feel about them?
Spoiler alert: I did not ask them to remove the flowers, I love them!
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I really see a move towards gardeners looking for fragrant hosta in their garden. I need to educate myself on the most fragrant hosta. Do you know any?
August lily hosta (Hosta plantaginea, Zones 3–9) was featured in this article on Bill Noble's beautiful garden in central Vermont:
https://www.finegardening.com/article/4-planting-plans-for-multiseason-interest-garden-designs
Bill says that this hosta absolutely fills the garden with fragrance when it blooms in late summer.
Tony Avent has a great article on the Plant Delights website that covers this species and the relatively small number of fragrant hosta cultivars that have been introduced since 1950:
https://www.plantdelights.com/blogs/articles/fragrant-white-flowers-hosta-plantaginea
I like hosta flowers! And so do the hummingbirds, so I would not ever cut them.
Hooray! I will count that as multiple "yes" votes for leaving the flowers ( ;
It is a 50/50 answer in the gardens we care for. Some varieties of Hosta have lovely flowers that are fragrant and I always advocate for leaving these up as long as possible. Even the seed heads provide interesting texture. Some have gangly stems with wet tissue like blooms that detract from the aesthetic of the garden. These we remove as soon as possible unless there are better or more important things to do with our time. In my personal garden, I just let the plants do what they do.
Sounds like a good approach. Thanks for weighing in, Marti!