Every garden has a shady spot that can be enhanced by easy-to-grow and hardy hostas. Handsome leaves and mid to late summer flowers provide a superb show. The Standard Hosta spread to form one of the loveliest, low-maintenance.

Hosta is a genus of about 40 species of lily-like plants in the family Agavaceae, native to northeast Asia. The scientific name is also used as the common name; in the past they were also sometimes known as "Plantain lily", now obsolete. The Japanese name Giboshi is also used in English to a small extent.

They are herbaceous plants, with broad lanceolate leaves 6–50 cm long and 4–30 cm broad. The flowers are produced on an erect panicle up to 60 cm tall; the individual flowers are usually pendulous, 2–5 cm long, with six petals, greenish, white, violet or pink in colour; richly perfumed in some species, but mostly scentless.

Though many Hostas originate in China, many of the species that provide the modern shade garden plants were introduced from Japan to Europe by Philipp Franz von Siebold in the mid-19th century.

Hostas are widely-cultivated ground cover plants; cultivars with golden- or white-variegated leaves are especially prized. The American Hosta Society and the British Hosta and Hemerocallis Society support Hosta Display Gardens, often within botanical gardens.

Hostas are notoriously a favourite food for slugs and snails, which commonly cause extensive damage to hosta collections in gardens.

Loyalist Hosta
A show-stopper! Heart-shaped leaves of heavy substance are white with broad green margins. Lavender blooms appear in midsummer. Grows 12-24” high and 24-30” wide. The Loyalist Hosta is long-lived, easy to care for and attractive from spring to frost.