Thanks Susan, it's a really great Hosta to have! The flowers to the left are Alstroemeria, one I bought at a garden centre years ago and it had survived in a cold greenhouse over winter for years, it had no name but is much like a species. I originally had the plant in the pot the Hosta is in and it survived winters outside but started to dwindle so I rescued a bit of it and kept it to grow in a pot of it's own. Last winter was too much for it (the Alstroemeria) with 7 weeks below freezing, but I still had some pieces regrow in pots where I recycled the compost! It will grow from seed too as it makes seed easily, I have had a plant set itself from seed in a nearby pot which seems to work better than if I try to grow them in a pot of their own. They germinate and grow when conditions suit them rather than when I want them too! At the moment the small plants which regrew are still outside, I will have to put them under cover and hope they grow again as they are spectacular and I lost far too many bulbs last winter. They make long fleshy tuberous roots which are a lillte like a bunch of long thin white radishes.
The red flowers in front are Lilium pumilum which I grew from seed but they are short lived.
The Hosta gets a lot of shade and some sun, it's near the back of my house. I have a huge Horse Chestnut tree in my garden which casts shadows over much of the garden!
This photo I took from my back door in 2008, many of the plants I had then I now don't have due to our cool/cold/freezing climate! You can just see the hosta behind a Carex at the front. There's a low bank to the right which is the south side where the sun shines from when it decides to show itself but in the summer the sun rises and sets quite high to the north swinging far to the south, in winter it rises and sets in a shallow arc to the south. The view is to the east.
