Eurohosta 2021

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Eurohosta 2021

Eurohosta in 2021 | Text and Foto: Eurohosta, January 2022

Year 2021

The year 2021 had recently finished and a new one has begun. Many of us are already planning about what the new one may bring. But today we want to remember the old one that is already over. It was not the best year for any of us. We still haven´t won the battle against covid, economic changes took place in many areas and affected almost all parts of our lives. What was the year 2021 like for our Eurohosta team? Let us reminisce about the old year. Maybe you were with us, maybe we met somewhere or experienced something together...

Eurohosta Mail Order Store

Despite several complications caused by the covid situation, Eurohosta began sending packages as usual in the spring of 2021. The spring was very hectic for us. We had our hands full of sending the packages within the set deadlines. Most of them were delivered in April and May. Everything turned out well in the end and the plants reached our customers on time.

Dozens of packages went to you every day ...

V. Hosta Days 2021

On June 11-12, 2021, we organized another meeting of hosta friends... The weather was nice, so many hosta lovers gathered at our Záhradníctvo Hosta in Žiar nad Hronom after a year. You arrived from all corners of Slovakia. We had people from Malacky, Žilina, Piešťany, Bratislava, Rožňava, Zvolen, Slatinské Lazy, and even the Czech Republic and Germany... so our event is slowly becoming "international".

In our shop, more than 200 hosta cultivars were on display, and mostly available for purchase. Many of them were common, but a few exceptional and rare cultivars as well. Due to the fact that the space in our gardens is not large, all cultivars were available only in small quantities. Visitors were attracted by large, blue cultivars, a corner with miniature and rare hostas...you were also interested in streaked hostas, including the Günther’s Prize and Neat Splash. Cultivars with red leaf petioles are gradually gaining their admirers. We had more than 30-40 cultivars for sale there. You liked H. Plum Pudding, H. Sugar Plum, H. First Blush or H. Delicious.

Organizing this event costs us a lot of effort. But we like to do it. The event is not significantly profitable, but our main goal is to promote the cultivation of these plants and create an opportunity for you, hosta lovers, to meet at least once a year and discuss together your experience with the cultivation of these undemanding perennials. And we believe, that if the weather allows it, we will meet again on June 3 and 4, 2022 in Žiar nad Hronom. You all are welcome!

V. Hosta Days in 2021 in our garden shop. Hosta - the queen of shady flower beds. There are many hosta cultivars in our actual offer.

V. Hosta Days in 2021 in our garden shop. Hosta - the queen of shady flower beds. There are many hosta cultivars in our actual offer.

Hosta Days in 2021 in our garden shop. Hosta - the queen of shady flower beds. There are many hosta cultivars in our actual offer.

V. Hosta Days in 2021 in our garden shop. Hosta - the queen of shady flower beds. There are many hosta cultivars in our actual offer.

A Trip to the Czech Republic, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium

Growing hostas is gaining more and more fans across Europe. Many enthusiasts focus not only on their cultivation but also on their breeding. These perennials in Europe probably have the most admirers and growers in the Netherlands and Belgium. There are many enthusiastic collectors of these perennials and also those who are dedicated to their breeding. It can therefore be said that European fashion trends in this area are dictated by Dutch and Belgian breeders.

The goal of our trip was to get new cultivars of the hosta into our collection, to establish personal contacts and to obtain information about the cultivation and propagation of the hostas. Three blogs were created directly or in connection with this trip, which you can read on our website.

Hostaholic - Christina Brinkmann
Vladimír Mirka and his Bohemia hostas
Almost 30 years of hosta passion

And so at the beginning of July 2021 we stopped briefly at V. Mirka in Kladno, at Ch. Brinkmann in Gütersloh, Germany, we admired hostas from Dutch growers J. Linneman and G. Veenstra, as well as Belgian breeders Rik Desmedt and D. van Eeachaute. That were really nice meetings and we give our thanks to everybody we were able to visit. Thank you for the warm welcome and for the fact that they told us about how they grow and reproduce their hostas and also showed us their wonderful seedlings. As a results of this trip, many beautiful cultivars have been added to our hosta collection. We believe that they will grow well and that in a few years we will be able to offer them, even if only in small quantities, to you, our customers.

Hosta Christmas Tree Gala.

Hostas of Vladimír Mirka from Kladno. More about them here.

Hostas of Vladimír Mirka from Kladno. Some from his cultivars are available in our eshop.

In the garden full of hostas...

A private garden in Holland full of hostas.

Hosta 'Valley's Makoto. We have in offer a few cultivars from Jeroen Linneman.

Hosta 'Valley's Prison Blues. We have in offer a few cultivars from Jeroen Linneman.

Hosta 'Valley's Cloudbuster'. We have in offer a few cultivars from Jeroen Linneman.

Private garden Ch. Brinkmann in Germany full of hostas. You can find the offer of our hostas here.

Hosta seedlings in the garden of Ch. Brinkmann in Germany.

Private garden of Ch. Brinkmann in Germany full of hostas. You can find the offer of our hostas here.

Hosta Final Victory.

Hosta Coastal Rainbow Warrior. More about hosta breeder Rik Desmedt here.

Private garden of Ch. Brinkmann in Germany full of hostas. You can find the offer of our hostas here.

Hosta Modern Dance. In the garden of Rik Desmedt.

Hosta Prime Mark.

Hosta Chris` A lalalala long. You can find the offer of our hostas here.

Streaked hostas.

Small hosta from "Mouse" family - we have few of them in offer.

Blue hosta Silver Light. We have many blue hostas in offer.

Tetrapoid sport from hosta Two If By Sea in the garden of Danny van Eechaute from Belgium.

Hosta Big Performer.

Hosta Confused Angel.

Rare hosta Tom Terrific.

In the garden of Gerrie Veenstra in Netherlands.

Hosta Amalia.

New Website

Our website, www.eurohosta.com, is definitely familiar to you. We aim to make our website as simple as possible, and we update it with new information, photos, etc. on a regular basis. The page's functionality has also been altered. We came to the conclusion in 2021, that the planned technological changes could no longer be implemented in the old version, and that we needed to upgrade it. After about 6 months of preparation, we finally published the updated website in the fall of 2021. We did not want the new version of the website to be too different from the previous version. We considered this older version to be visually good, only a little technically outdated. Therefore, the design of the old website was only slightly modified and flipped into the new version. On the new website, you will find all the features that you were used to in the older version. The news is, e.g., point system, easier price filtering, easier transition between language versions, responsive design for the mobile version, etc. We believe that all the new features will help you navigate you even better.

Hostas from Our Breeding Program

Our breeding program is by no means extensive. We focus on diploid cultivars, and if they have narrow, long or elliptical leaves, we consider it as an advantage. We would also like our future cultivars to attract garden visitors, especially in the shape of leaves or clump shape. So far, we have registered 6 hosta cultivars in the American Hosta Society (AHS).

Buffalo Amber Waves, registered in AHS in 2016
Buffalo Bill, registered in AHS in 2014
Buffalo Black Soup, registered in AHS in 2016
Buffalo Designer Genes, registered in AHS in 2020
Buffalo Ice Mouse, registered in AHS in 2020
Buffalo Spring Beauty, registered in AHS in 2020

Although we did not register any new hostas in 2021 due to time constraints, we have several new hosta cultivars ready for registration. We plan to fill out registration forms in the coming days and send them to AHS for review.

Buffalo Grassland Fountain will definitely be among them. This crossbreed between H. Neptune and H. Funky Monkey really has a fountain shape. The leaves gradually merge downwards, they have distinct dark burgundy petioles, wavy edges and a green-blue color of the leaves. Later in the season, a yellow mosaic may appear on the leaves, caused by genes from H. Funky Monkey, which is also similarly colored in the second half of the season. The only shortcoming of this cultivar, which we consider to be one of the best we have managed to breed so far, is perhaps that this hosta is not fertile.

We also decided to register one yellow cultivar, called Buffalo Golden Curls. It comes from hosta Kempen Weaving Shadow. We hesitated for a while whether to register this cultivar or not. We are not convinced whether every grower will appreciate its relatively unusual shape. In the end, however, we decided to register this strange, "unruly" curly yellow clump and allow other hostas lovers to fall in love with it as much as we do. The leaves are delicate in spring, relatively long petioles, fall down, the edges are wavy, have a narrow leaf tip and the leaves twist irregularly to the side. Overall, it gives this cultivar a bit of a restless expression. The cultivar has never blossomed in our country before...