Fortunei Aureomarginata is a dependable, long-grown hosta with spinach green leaves carrying a hint of blue and edged in deep golden yellow. The margins hold their color all season, and the broad, oval leaves are lightly puckered.
It grows 18 to 24 inches tall and about 40 inches wide. Pale lavender flowers rise on 40-inch stems in mid to late summer. It holds a Royal Horticultural Society Award of Garden Merit and works well in borders, containers and mass plantings.
What it looks like
A mounded clump 18 to 24 inches tall and about 40 inches wide of broad, oval, slightly puckered leaves in deep spinach green with a blue tint, edged by a narrow to medium band of deep golden yellow. In mid to late summer, stems about 40 inches tall carry pale lavender bell flowers. At peak the plant is a green-and-gold mound with tall lavender spires above.
Growing it with lavender
Keep it out of the lavender field and plant it in a moist, shaded bed where it can pair with coral bells, ferns and bleeding hearts.
Care
Grows best in part to full shade. Give it evenly moist, humus-rich soil that drains well, and water during dry spells; hardy in zones 3-9. Cut the foliage down after hard frost, and divide crowded clumps in spring as new shoots appear. Watch for slugs in damp springs.
At a glance
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Botanical name: Hosta
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Flower color: Pale lavender
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Foliage: Spinach green with deep golden yellow margins
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Growth habit: Mounded clump
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Mature size: 18–24 in tall × 40 in wide
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USDA hardiness zones: 3–9
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Light: part sun to part shade, full shade
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Bloom start: Mid-July
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Peak bloom: Early-August
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Bloom pattern: Single Flush
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Deer resistance: Susceptible
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Pollinator value: Good
Sizes and shipping
Dormant bare-root plant, sold in boxes of 25 per variety (order in multiples of 25). Bare-root plants ship or are picked up March 1–May 31 only. They are soil-free, so they may ship to every state in that window. Dormant plants often show little or no top growth on arrival; plant or heel them in promptly.