Hostas are becoming increasingly more popular across Europe. There are a number of hosta growers in Europe, that have gardens full of hostas and plenty of hosta cultivars in their collections. Some of these gardeners stopped growing other plants, and grown hostas exclusively. We would like to introduce some hosta gardeners to you and allow them to inspire you with their ideas for arranging and cultivating hostas.

Today, we would like to introduce the wonderfull garden of Rik Desmedt from Belgium. Hostas are Rik´s favorite plants. He has been growing them for over 28 years. His garden is full of wonderful hosta cultivars. There are a lot of fantastic rarities, but also many common cultivars, among his beauties.

“For the first 18 years, I have grown hostas only as an enthusiastic gardener. Only in the last 10 or so years have I developed a deeper interest in them. I started to study them much more intensely, and I found a lot of information on the internet, how to take care of them and how to cultivate them… At the same time, I also found many interesting nurseries in Europe, growing hostas, and many interesting people who also have been growing hostas for years. I contacted both nurseries and individuals, whio all gladly provided even more information on how to grow hostas. Among many, I would like to mention one person, Danny Van Eechaute, who became a good friend of mine. He helped me so much and he tought me how to grow hostas as well as how to hybridize them.”

Several years ago, Rik, instructed on how to cross hostas, started his hybridization program.

“As many other hosta lovers in these times, I fell in love with “red stem hostas” and it is understandable that I started to use them in my hybridization program, along with streaked ones.” Speaks Rik standing between his hostas.

 Do you already have some hosta cultivars of your own?

“Sure, I have. I already named 45 hostas and there will be more coming soon. The day I decided to start to give names to my own hosta plants, I was looking for a suitable name and I decided to use the prefix “COASTAL”, because I live near the Belgian sea coast. So now I grow in my garden hosta Coastal Tropical Fish, Coastal Moonlight, Coastal Simple Minds, Coastal Dragonera, Coastal Sand Colors and many more. Hosta Coastal Treasure (Hosta Whoopee seedling) is probably my most popular cultivar so far and it is already offered for sale by several hosta producers, including Eurohosta.”

Rik plants all his hostas in pots and he overwinters them outside, without any special covering. The mild oceanic climate in his area allows that. When you look at Rik‘s hostas, you can really see many of his own cultivars, plenty of great streaked plants, many with solid-colored leaves, pointed leaves, wavy edges and all colors, yellow, green and also blue, but especially, most of them with red legs.

How important is it for you to be in contact with other hosta growers?

“Yes, that is very important for me. Every year I look forward to the start of the season to see what my friends have hybridized. Every year more and more friends come into my life, not only from Belgium, but from all over the world. Every year we try to make a day trip with friends to visit other gardens. For me that is the most beautiful time of the year, for sure. I will never be grateful enough to all my friends for the nice times we had together. My special thanks goes to Danny, for his work and that he brings so many wonderful, new hostas to Belgium from overseas. Without his work, it would be difficult to get these rare cultivars and it would be hard to use them in my hybridizing program.”

We want to thank Rik for allowing us to look into his garden through his nice photographs. From the bottom of our hearts, we wish him success in introducing many new, beautiful "Coastal" cultivars and that his cultivars will please gardeners not only in Europe but around the world.

PS: If you want to contact Rik, just send a PM to his facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/rik.desmedt

  There are many streaked hostas introduced by Rik, one of them is hosta Coastal Beachcombner.

Hosta Coastal Fear Of The Dark.

Hosta Coastal Rock The Boat.

Hosta Coastal Sand Colors.

 Hosta Coasta Sweet Bullit.

 Hosta Coastal Skyscraper.

Hosta Coastal Widowmaker.

Hosta Coastal Tropical Fish.

Streaked hosta with red "legs", possible future introduction.

Rik´s non-streaked plants almost always have red "legs" - hosta Coastal Moonlight.

Hosta Coastal Infinite Dreams.

Hosta Coastal Red Sparrow.

Future intro.

Future intro with long leaves. 

Future intro with long leaves. 

Nice seedling with red petioles.

Nice seedling with red petioles and long leaves.

Hosta Coastal Simple Minds represends mediovariaged cultivars.

Fantastic future introduction.

Fantastic future introduction.

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