Hostas are Edible!

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It may be no surprise to see potted hostas for sale at your local farmer’s market, early in the planting season, along with other garden favorites, but would you recognize the young shoots and leaves if they were bundled and hawked as fresh produce?  Forget the side of asparagus or a lettuce salad, and say hello to hostas!

Hosta montana

Hostas have long been used as a food source, and are most commonly consumed in Japan.  Legend suggests that where H. montana grows like a weed in the northern mountain regions of Japan, locals took advantage of the easy nutritional value and eventually began cultivating the crop.

Hostas and prawns

Today, the plant is sold as Urui, and the shoots, leaves and flowers are all edible.  The soft texture and mild, less bitter flavor of young shoots is preferred to older growth.  It is best to harvest leaves in the morning, when they have the highest moisture content.  They can be eaten raw or cooked (boiled) and I have seen descriptions of taste which include snow pea pods, asparagus, lettuce and spinach.  Snipping the blooms may seem gruesome to some hosta fanatics, but the flowers are also edible and can be used to beautify your salad or featured as a cake decoration.

Hostas stir fried

Although all species appear to be edible, H. montana and H. sieboldii are the most common vegetable favorites, while H. plantaginea is preferred for the sweet delicacy of flower consumption.  An interesting aside, the Chinese frequently plant fields of H. plantaginea for honey production.

Hosta salad

Recipes usually boil the stems or leaves, and then serve the vegetable in salad, dressed with sauce or paste, pickled, in sushi, or fried as tempura.  I have yet to see hostas available in my local vegetable aisle, and therefore believe that the curious will have to make some sacrifices in their own garden!  Just remember to avoid any plants that you have treated with systemic insecticide.  Check the Plants for a Future website for more information on specific species: www.pfaf.org.

(*photos from http://forums.seedsavers.org/showthread.php?p=16708&mode=linear#post16708)

 

I haven’t tried it yet, but I found this recipe at http://www.giboshiarekore.com/recipe.html

Urui with Vinegar Mustard Miso Dressing

Ingredients:
Hosta (H. montana or whatever hosta you’d like to try)
White miso (bean paste)
Sugar
Sake (Japanese rice wine) or mirin (sweet cooking rice wine)
Vinegar (Kenya recommends rice vinegar)
Mustard

  1.  Prepare Hosta:
    1. Cut off fresh leaves of hosta (preferably H. montana) just above the crown.  Wash them well, and cook in boiling water with a little salt for 1/2 minute to 1-1/2 minutes.  Drain well in a colander.  Cut the leaves into 1 to 2 inches.
  2. Prepare VMM Dressing:
    1. Place white miso and sugar (about 1 : 0.7) in a small sauce pan
    2. Add some sake or mirin just enough so it is easy to mix
    3. Cook over low heat stirring constantly with a wooden spoon
    4. It is done when it turns creamy
    5. Cool the miso mixture
    6. Add vinegar to thin the miso mixture and mix well with a whisk
    7. Prepare mustard if you use dry one;  Luke-warm water makes the mustard spicier
    8. Add the mustard to your taste to the miso mixture, and mix more with a whisk
  3. Serve the cooked hosta with the dressing

 

 

 

 

White Hostas (part 2) and Tetraploidy

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Tom shared one more interesting piece of advice on white hostas.  It’s important to know that tetraploid hostas with white centered leaves generally show less susceptibility to burn.  Their white tissue is thicker and appears more durable than diploid hostas.

'Eternal Flame' is a tetraploid, and may show more resistance to burn.

'Pathfinder' is another tetraploid hosta with white centers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Most plants, including hostas, are diploids, and have two full sets of chromosomes, one from each parent.  But on rare occasion, a plant can naturally mutate and accidentally receive extra sets of chromosomes (polyploidy).  This can occur in different numbers, but the most common are tetraploids with four sets of chromosomes, and also triploids with three sets of chromosomes.  It’s also thought that some plants may have been converted from diploids to polyploids as a side effect of herbicide use.  Now breeders try to chemically induce extra chromosomes, in hopes of creating desirable traits that result from polyploidy.  Tetraploid hostas tend to have thicker leaves, deeper color, greater color variation, a more upright habit, slightly larger blooms.  Some may even go so far as to say the ticker tissue is more difficult for slugs to eat through, and Tom pointed out, the thicker white leaf tissue does not burn as easily at thinner white tissue in diploids.

'Touch of Class'

'June'

 

 

 

 

 

 

The visual difference between diploid and tetraploid hostas comes down to a matter of taste.  ‘Touch of Class’ is the tetraploid version the originally diploid ‘June’ and ‘Liberty’ is the tetraploid version of the originally diploid ‘Sagae’.

'Liberty'

'Sagae'

Search Our Hostas by Fun Names

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I just learned that you can now use our website to search hostas by fun name categories, and can’t resist a moment of self-promotion.  This tool is neat!  Have a favorite food, movie, or actor that you want to bring into your garden?  Start you search here, Hostas with Fun Names, then refine by choosing the ‘Plant’ tab, and look for the ‘Fun Name’ search box.

Choose from animals, card games, presidents, any many more!

A Little About White Hostas

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I’m not sure I should admit this in writing, but the first time I saw a white hosta, at quick glance I thought it was dead.  Was it just a clump of overwintered leaves that had been neglected during spring cleanup?  As I’m not one to seek out a black petunia, a blue rose, or, for that matter a white hosta – it just seemed logical that the plant was ill or had befallen an unfavorable fate.  But at a closer look, I was definitely wrong.  It was a white hosta – healthy, and surprisingly quite interesting and even beautiful.  (In retrospect, I think it must have been a Hosta White Feathers).

'White Feathers' emerges nearly all white.

It turns out that a white hosta can be very much alive, with a few asterisks to the definition:

  • ALL WHITE HOSTAS:  A seemingly magical plant, brilliant in its all white hue.  Well, be wary because no matter your gardening experience a truly all-white plant will die.  There are some hostas that emerge entirely white, BUT in order to survive they turn to green as the season progresses.  Remember back to biology class and that plants use chlorophyll to make their food – so all plants need some green tissue.  But as long as the hosta can produce and store enough energy for its survival, there can be many possible color combinations.
  • PARTIALLY WHITE HOSTAS:  Color changes are actually fairly common in hostas, and can affect the whole plant, the leaf center, the margins, etc.  While external factors like sunlight and soil can affect the color, more permanent variations are due to genetic mutations.  The most frequent changes are:
    • Viridescense:  Emerge white or yellow and turn green.
    • Lutescense:  Emerge with shades of green that turn to shades of white or yellow.
    • Albescence:  Emerge in a shade of yellow-green and turn to near white.

'Guardian Angel' displays viridescense

'Little Aurora' displays lutescense

'Celebration' displays albescence

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To determine the difficulty to grow, consider the ratio of white to green in the plant.  As a loose rule of thumb, the more white tissue there is, the more sensitive the plant and the more particular it will be about sunlight.  Additionally, white leaf tissue is often thinner, and can easily burn or melt-out.  Also remember, these plants need to create their food either in a fewer number of days/weeks than green hostas, or using less chlorophyll than green hostas.  They need the opportunity to make the most of what they’re given.

Perhaps this will be the summer I get my hands dirty.  I like the bold look of Lakeside Spellbinder and also the upright shape of Fireworks.

A new favorite plant: Milkweed

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That’s right, forget hosta and forget heuchera.  Let’s talk about milkweed.

Asclepias curassavica, Mexican Butterfly Weed

It’s a herbaceous perennial, it grows in sun, and it flowers in shades of yellows, oranges, pinks and purples.  It can be worked into native plantings, mass plantings, in borders and in garden beds.  It attracts hummingbirds and butterflies, and honeybees eat its nectar.  The plant tissue contains cardiac glycosides, a compound whose toxicity varies by specie, but which if ingested in a large enough quantity could supposedly wipe out a horse.  In fact, the genus, Asclepias, was named for the God of medicine and healing in Greek mythology.

Asclepias incarnata, Swamp Milkweed

But here’s the important part – milkweed is host to monarch butterflies.  Monarch caterpillars munch on the leaves, ingest the cardenolides, and then have a bitter and sickening form of self-defense against predators.  Unfortunately, predators are not their only problem.

Monarch populations are in trouble as habitats shrink and weather patterns shift.  Also, depending on what you choose to believe, pesticide use may be a factor.

I have to admit, butterflies are not my forte, but Tom has a wonderful compassion for nature, and as I understand from him, one of the best ways we can help the monarchs is to plant milkweed.

Hundreds of seeds and silky fluff wait inside the large pod.

It can be grown by seed, planted directly in the ground in the fall if it needs cold stratification, or by seed or small plant in the spring.

Find more details at http://monarchwatch.org/.

The Root of the Matter

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This post is for anyone looking at their plant and thinking, ‘wow, it’s just so small!’, or ‘this is never going to grow!’.  It can be hard to ignore the frustration that your tiny, three leaved plant doesn’t look like the mature beauty you’ve been drooling over on google images and then the doubt sets in and you figure your baby plant will mistakenly be pulled as a weed or you won’t be around to see it mature.

But don’t worry!  At least try not to worry.

A Hosta Teeny-Weeny Bikini from our greenhouse in late March. The first leaves are emerging, but the roots steal the show.

The roots of Hosta Teeny-Weeny Bikini. They have enough structure to support the growing plant.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Instead of feeling disappointed with the leaves, you should feel reassured when you examine the roots.  As long as you’ve got a strong network of roots, (white and abundant), then you have a healthy plant that will definitely grow with space, light, water, and time.

I’ve been guilty of just admiring the flowers and emerging leaves, without giving a second thought to what I can’t see, but it’s slowly being ground into my head – roots are important too!  They suck water and nutrients up from the soil and deliver them to the body of the plant.  Roots also need oxygen, so your healthy rootball should not be too compacted.  The roots need to develop ahead of the stems and leaves in order to provide them energy.  Even when you plant a seed, remember that a single root shoot, the radicle, grows before we ever see the first leaf, and that germination has begun before we even realize.

From our greenhouse, the first leaf on a Hosta Blue Mammoth.

The same Hosta Blue Mammoth. These roots are gorgeous!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So when you have a beautiful root system, trust nature to do what it does best, and your leaves will come.

 

First Hosta Leaves are Surfacing

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This is a beautiful time in the greenhouse.  Just a couple of weeks ago these trays looked like bare soil.  As the first leaves emerge the variation is quite apparent.

Hosta 'Wheee!'

Hosta 'Rainbow's End'

Hosta 'Paradise Island'

Hosta 'Little Treasure'

Hosta 'Autumn Frost'

Hosta 'Irish Luck'

Hosta 'So Sweet'

Hosta 'Twist of Lime'

Hosta 'Designer Genes'

Hosta 'Tickle Me Pink'

Plant Breeding

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This year we’re offering two heucheras, Cajun Fire and Delta Dawn, which are new introductions for 2012.  As a home gardener, of course it’s fun to get a new plant, but the commercial breeding process begins years beforehand and is a path of patience and persistence.

Plant Breeding, boiled down:

The first step of a breeding program is to focus on a specific trait, such as a new color or improved tolerance to heat/cold…if you’re thinking the black petunia craze, that’s correct.  But because there are endless shades of green, breeders allegedly follow the 10 foot rule – the idea is that in order to prevent a glut of similar plants, new cultivars should be easily distinguished from ten feet away.  It’s up to you to decide if this is nurseryman’s folklore or actually practiced.

Breeders select parent plants, and continue to cross and backcross, keeping excellent records throughout the process.  First generation plants (F1) rarely show the desirable traits that their parents were chosen for.  But by the second generation (F2), these traits are more easily recognized and are selected for more crosses.  Eventually, prime candidates are multiplied for continued trials, and only a clear winner will be released to the public.

For example, the general process at Terra Nova Nurseries (a large heuchera breeder), starts with 1200 plants in the trialing area per year.  Only 12 move on to a secondary trialing for comparison to plants already on the market.  Of those, 3-4 are chosen to be grown and multiplied in tissue culture.  About 100 duplicates of each plant are grown and given to wholesalers for trialing in their own gardens for at least one year.  If the plant gets a thumbs-up, it now gets a name, a process with few restrictions other than a 3-4 word length limit.  Plant patents or Plant Variety Rights need to be filed within one year of commercial release, and can have hefty fees (up to $15,000) and paperwork.  Beautiful photographs are one of the last, but perhaps most important, steps to a successful public release.

To read an interview with Dan Heims, the famed breeder and horticulturist behind Terra Nova nurseries, click here.

To learn more about breeding and its commercial effect, read the story of Minnesota’s horticultural darling, the honeycrisp apple.

Hostas as Houseplants

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For curious hosta experimenters, here’s an inspiring story about growing them as houseplants.  I couldn’t tell it better myself, so here it is, from our customer Brian in Minnesota.

I purchased a hosta “Touch of Class” last spring.  I live in an apartment and I REALLY wanted to see if hosta could be grown as a houseplant.  Everyone, even the experts, said no way, especially the blue varieties.  I’m rather bull headed and somehow I manage to kill every living plant within ten feet of myself (kidding)…well sort of.

Anyway, on Novemebr 1st of 2011 I cut all the leaves off below soil level, gave her one last watering, turned the fridge down to its coldest level, put the whole pot in a zip lock baggy and threw her in the crisper bin.  I kept my fingers crossed that this would be enough to trick the plant into the ‘rest phase’.  I took her back out on February 1st of this year, and sure enough, last night (February 15th) I noticed the plant had broken dormancy and new leaves are just now poking out of the top of the soil.

YAYYYYYY.

Just thought you might be curious…they can be grown indoors.  You just have to trick them.

Leaf of Hosta 'Touch of Class'

At last update, March 13th, the Touch of Class is very happy in a north window, and has four leaves.