Golden Acre Home & Garden Centre's Plant Library

Other Names:  Plantain Lily, Funkia

Brand:  Ball

Description:

Shade loving and quick growing, this variety features mounds of tri-colored foliage; creamy-white centered leaves with streaks of yellow and edged in dark green; lilac flowers appear in the mid-summer months; adds texture and color to beds and borders

Ornamental Features

Color Festival Hosta features dainty spikes of lilac purple tubular flowers rising above the foliage from mid to late summer. Its attractive large textured round leaves remain creamy white in colour with distinctive dark green edges and tinges of buttery yellow throughout the season.

Landscape Attributes

Color Festival Hosta is a dense herbaceous perennial with a mounded form. Its relatively coarse texture can be used to stand it apart from other garden plants with finer foliage.

This is a relatively low maintenance plant, and is best cleaned up in early spring before it resumes active growth for the season. It is a good choice for attracting bees and hummingbirds to your yard. Gardeners should be aware of the following characteristic(s) that may warrant special consideration;

• Insects

Color Festival Hosta is recommended for the following landscape applications;

• Mass Planting
• General Garden Use
• Groundcover
• Container Planting

Planting & Growing

Color Festival Hosta will grow to be about 16 inches tall at maturity extending to 24 inches tall with the flowers, with a spread of 24 inches. When grown in masses or used as a bedding plant, individual plants should be spaced approximately 24 inches apart. Its foliage tends to remain dense right to the ground, not requiring facer plants in front. It grows at a medium rate, and under ideal conditions can be expected to live for approximately 10 years. As an herbaceous perennial, this plant will usually die back to the crown each winter, and will regrow from the base each spring. Be careful not to disturb the crown in late winter when it may not be readily seen!

This plant does best in partial shade to shade. It prefers to grow in average to moist conditions, and shouldn't be allowed to dry out. This plant should not require much in the way of fertilizing once established, although it may appreciate a shot of general-purpose fertilizer from time to time early in the growing season. It is not particular as to soil type or pH. It is somewhat tolerant of urban pollution. This particular variety is an interspecific hybrid. It can be propagated by division; however, as a cultivated variety, be aware that it may be subject to certain restrictions or prohibitions on propagation.

Color Festival Hosta is a fine choice for the garden, but it is also a good selection for planting in outdoor pots and containers. It can be used either as 'filler' or as a 'thriller' in the 'spiller-thriller-filler' container combination, depending on the height and form of the other plants used in the container planting. Note that when growing plants in outdoor containers and baskets, they may require more frequent waterings than they would in the yard or garden. Be aware that in our climate, most plants cannot be expected to survive the winter if left in containers outdoors, and this plant is no exception. Contact our experts for more information on how to protect it over the winter months.