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Re: [SG] where do hostas grow?

At 4:43 AM -0400 6/27/98, Rich Horowitz wrote:
>Hi Lenora:
>
>Gardens planted near the house or stone walls are heat collectors.  Add the
>fact of a warmer than normal winter, your assumption has merit.
>
>Hosta come from Japan and China.  I have never looked at a map comparing their
>location to the USDA growing zones.  Hoowever, I would take an educated guess
>that zone 7 might be the growing extreme for hosta.
>
>I know that there are more knowledge people in this group of gardeners who
>will be more helpful.

I have a map called "World Biogeographic Provinces."

China's huge, and has pretty much every known kind of climate.  Much of it
is in the same biogeographic province (not sure *precisely* what that
means, but I assume its a rough way to compare climates) as the eastern US
(deciduous trees grow there, for instance).  Japan's a lot of islands and
the ocean moderates the weather there.  Japan shares the approximate
climate of (going from south to north) the deep south (not including the
southern-most tip of Florida), the pacific northwest (though barely as far
south as Portland, OR), and the eastern US, a bit west of the
Texas/Louisiana border.

I do not know precisely where in Japan hostas grow, but we can use the
above information to infer very broadly where they might do well in the US.
And at this remove we may be certain there are more places to grow hostas
where they will do well.  Those places will be where we stretch the
boundaries of the climates cited, not entirely replace them with another
biome.

All of which seems to point to Rich's educated guess being a correct one.

I have visited China and Japan in the last six months.  I saw many more
gardens in Japan (we toured Kyoto extensively, and it is *beautiful*), but
not a single hosta.  I have to assume that it was the season, since we were
in China in November and Japan in early March, before the cherry blossoms
were in full bloom.

I do think hostas are more popular here than they are in Japan.  I think
gardening crazes move *very slowly* there.  The Japanese are most proud of
their centuries-old gardens and they are incredible.

Karen. [bought a book on Japanese gardening with a whole chapter called
"Where Do I Put the Rock?" ;>]
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