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A Tragic Tale of Hostas


By Paul James

I fell in love with hostas in the early 80s when I planted three ‘Krossa Regals’ in a small, shady spot beneath a large oak tree, not realizing just how big they would get. After all, they had only just been introduced, and in all likelihood I was one of the first gardeners to plant them in Tulsa.
After three years, they were three-feet tall and five-feet wide! I was astounded. And madly in love with hostas.

Since then, I’ve moved a few times, and I’ve planted hostas in every new garden. At my last house, I had a very large, shaded bed filled with exactly 182 ‘Francee’ hostas, as well as ferns, Astilbes, bleeding hearts, columbines, Heucheras, elderberries, and a half dozen Japanese maples. It was, if I do say so myself, a sight to behold.

Until one fateful day.

It was April. My family and I had just returned from a week-long trip to Disney World, where I was the keynote speaker at the Epcot Flower and Garden Festival. As I pulled into the driveway, I was absolutely dumbfounded to discover that there was only one hosta in the bed!

My first thought was that someone had stolen them, given that their retail value was north of $6,000. But there weren’t any signs of digging. I’d never had a problem with rabbits. And there weren’t any deer in the neighborhood. So how could 181 hostas vanish in a week?

As I stared at the one remaining hosta, it began to move, first gently back and forth, then rapidly in a circular pattern. And then suddenly, it vanished. It was as if the earth had swallowed it whole. For a brief moment I felt as though I was reliving a scene from “Caddyshack.” Turns out I was.

Gopher! I thought to myself. And sure enough, as I quietly approached the hole where the hosta was, I caught a brief glimpse of the furry brown, burrowing rodent as he dragged my last ‘Francee’ into his deep, dark labyrinth of tunnels.

Oddly enough, I never had any gopher issues from that day on, yet I never treated the property or hired an exterminator. Perhaps he (or she) simply moved on to greener pastures. Maybe a neighborhood dog got him. I’ll never know. But I like to think that he gorged himself with so many hostas that he simply exploded. I still savor that image.

And to this day, I still plant hostas.

Happy gardening, ya’ll.


2 responses to “A Tragic Tale of Hostas”

  1. Sherry Duncan says:

    I love mine I have not had this problem yet but I did 2 yr back have a deer come sometime threw the night and eat them all the way to the ground I got to day I was not happy at all. But they did come back the next year. We hung things in the tress that makes noise and old cds on hooks around them knock on wood they have stayed away. My 7 yr old says we had to hang them up because the gardener Paul says so. So we did. We need you here dug up all grass whole yard just plants its her wildlife place.