What cultivar do I have to choose?

There is around 6,000 registered cultivars of hostas worldwide and about 20 000 registered daylily cultivars. It's really a lot to choose from…

If I had to answer the question, which cultivar you should purchase, there have to be some universal, objective criteria which would hostas and daylily classified into certain categories. But such criteria do not exist.

The only criteria are those that you set yourself. All cultivars could be divided according to size, shape, color, light requirements, price etc. To decided for the right one, means simply eliminated any that you do not like - because they are too big, too small, too expensive, too orange, not enough yellow, or just do not like how they look like. It's just like when buying a car, clothes or anything else. A daylilies and hostas are very hardy perennials and chance that you do mistake is small.

Some friends have asked me to identify somehow in the catalog those plants, which I personally consider to be the best. I cannot say exactly why one cultivar is the better and the other worse. I just like some more than other. And the ones that I like more, I marked as the TOP in the catalogue. So, if you want to navigate according to this go ahead...

One possibility is also to look at what like other gardeners. Many people prefer to have large hosta cultivars. They are huge, attract visitor's attention, and quickly fill space in bed. Great popularity also have two-colored cultivars and still are in course the blues. Recently, people like miniatures in pots. The gardeners prefer red, dark, and white daylily cultivars. Customers prefer also those with wavy edges. A good choice is also new cultivars. Although a higher price you will have plant, which will have not at least the next few years no one neighbor. On the other hand, they are often not examined for long time and not all are definitively only gems.

One more useful advice. Check some popularity lists. Or check some forums and talk with others who plant the same cultivars.

I know I did not help you too much - it is what I wanted. I want you calculate only on your taste, instinct and your own opinion. Then you surely do not mistake.

Yours sincerely

Dana Z.

Useful web pages: 

Hosta Library

American Hosta Society

British Hosta & Hemerocallis Society

Bohemia hosta cultivars

Journal about gardening

American Hosta Society faebook

Ontario Hosta Society (OHS) facebook page