Lynne Puhalla Studios - Just added!

Lynne and her husband Jeff run a studio in North Attleboro, Massachusetts, where they marry the design elements of pottery and basketry. Lynne has degrees in both sculpture and design, and loves working and experimenting with the use of form, shape and texture. Hosta leaves are a favorite form for her "impressions" series. She last showed her wares at the 2011 AHS convention in Marlborough, Massachusetts, and we're glad we could squeeze in a table for her this year!

Benedict's Nursery

Robert & Esther Benedict will be bringing their miniature hostas and companion plants from their farm in Nappanee, Indiana. You may remember them as the Brethren folks at the Indianapolis convention.

Garden Vision Epimediums

Garden Vision Epimediums is a small, rural retail nursery established in 1997 and featuring the best selection of Bishops caps, Barrenworts and Fairy wings for sale in the United States. Epimediums make the perfect addition to your woodland shade garden. Their delicate, fragile beauty belies their tough, long-lasting nature. They are easy to grow, spring-blooming, deer-resistant, shade plants. Their flowers also come in a wide range of shapes and colors. Many also have amazing spring (and sometimes fall) foliage colors. Foliage size and shape varies from heart-shaped to spiny and arrow-shaped. Some leaflets can grow to be as large as your hand, others as small as your thumbnail.

Many gardeners know these plants simply as ground covers for dry shade, but recent hybrids and new species discoveries have added a whole new dimension to this intriguing genus. Most of the Epimediums in our collection represent the collecting and hybridizing efforts of Epimedium expert, Darrell Probst.

Green Hill Farm

Green Hill Farm and its online division Green Hill Hostas is a family business owned by Bob Solberg. We specialize in hostas and are one of the leading introducers of new hostas, many of them hybridized by Bob as well as other leading hosta hybridizers. We take great pride in the quality of our plants and our hostas are known for their very large root systems. (Great roots make a great growing hosta!)

Hosta hybridizing has been a passion of Bob’s for almost 30 years. In 2008 he was awarded the Eunice Fisher Distinguished Hybridizer Merit Award by the American Hosta Society for his work with hostas. He has introduced about 70 hostas to date and has plans to add five or so to that number each year. 'Guacamole', introduced in 1994 and Hosta of the Year in 2002 is probably his best known cultivar and is probably in your garden. 'Orange Marmalade' PP#16,742 is his first patented hosta and destined for a wide distribution. ‘Corkscrew’, ‘Ginsu Knife’, ‘Cracker Crumbs’, ‘Crumb Cake’, ‘Tongue Twister’, ‘First Frost’, ‘One Man’s Treasure’, ‘Smiley Face’,  ‘Curly Fries’, and 'First Blush' (currently one of the hottest hostas) are some of his better introductions.

Jack's Hostas

On his website, Jack says:

As a horticulturist, I have been involved in growing and selling hostas for almost twenty years. Many of you might recognize me from the various conventions that I have attended and might enjoy seeing my hosta enclave [in Cedarburg, Wisconsin]. I am a grower, seller, and hybridizer. There are several thousand varieties of hostas growing in my yard and flowing into my three neighbor’s yards. While I only have three quarters of an acre to grow on, the use of this additional space without fences contributes to the feeling of a much larger expanse. I look forward to offering you some of the best mature hostas available. If you have something you are searching for, let me quote you on the finest mature hostas in our area.

Land of the Giants Hosta Farm

Land of the Giants Hosta Farm is owned and operated by Jeff and Penny Miller and located in Milton, Wisconsin. What started out as only 25 different hosta varieties has over the years turned into a genuine farm growing over 2700 different varieties creating over 340,000 plants. Many are rare and unique hostas, not found at local nurseries but are eagerly sought after by devoted collectors and shade lovers nationwide.

Jeff also loves studying the plants, and hybridizes every year to create new and garden worthy plants, including many Giantland hostas that will be coming to market very soon. Jeff produced the convention gift plant (Charlie Seaver's hybrid, 'The Big Five-Oh'), so you can thank him for being true to the "giant" name when you see how big these are already!

Made in the Shade

Made in the Shade Gardens is a home based business founded in 2000 and owned by Rob Mortko (aka "The Hosta Guy") and his wife Sheri.  With about 3/4 acre of shaded woodland gardens, they have opened our gardens to the public while retailing over 400 of the most popular varieties of hosta - the largest selection in the Greater Kansas City area.  They also proudly offer our own hosta introductions 'Heart and Soul', registered in 2000, and 'Stitch in Time', registered in 2004.  Their gardens have been featured on local TV, on various garden tours including the 2000 Johnson County Master Gardener Tour, and in the Sept/Oct 2001 issue of Kansas City Homes and Gardens Magazine.

Mason Hollow Nursery

Owners Sue & Chuck Andersen opened Mason Hollow Nursery in 2001 offering 300 varieties of Hosta. The nursery has since grown and they currently offer upwards of 800 plant varieties!

Along with Hosta, Mason Hollow Nursery also offers great selections of ornamental grasses, heucheras, wildflowers, ferns and selected trees & shrubs, collector's conifers and many other selected perennials.

O'Brien Nurserymen

O’Brien Nurserymen, LLC was founded in 1984 as O’Brien Landscaping, Inc., a design-install landscape company.  As the years passed, they found themselves working mostly in the shade, so a natural evolution was into hosta gardening.  Hostas were not just a product they offered; they turned into a passion.  They started collecting hosta and joining many different hosta societies, and subsequently opened their retail nursery.

O’Brien Nurserymen, LLC has now grown into New England’s premier hosta nursery.  Their extensive display gardens feature over 1,600 hosta varieties as well as other shady characters including asarums, pulmonarias, epimediums and arisaemas.  The gardens also include a wide variety of unusual dwarf conifers and over a hundred varieties of Japanese maples.

The Papercrete Potter

How to describe what Lee Coates does (and will be bringing to the convention)? Lee describes himself as "A semi-retired plant geek, writer, speaker, and purveyor of fine Ozarkian humor." He creates unique garden-worthy objects, and sells a nice selection of Japanese maples and other woody plants. Papercrete, if you're wondering, is a variation on the hypertufa material that can be used for miniature gardens.

Silvers-Elbert Nursery

Silvers-Elbert Nursery is a family-run nursery, active in local and national hosta organizations. Their goal for the last 23 years has been to offer the best, newest and hard to get Hosta at reasonable prices, with quality customer service the key to our success. Their website is their catalog, and the only mail order business we conduct is through the website. Their Hosta collection has multiplied over the last few years to include enough to propagate for the discriminating collector and enthused gardener. They are state inspected, and all of their plants are grown at their Atlanta-area nursery.

Uniquely Hostas

Marlene Rosenberg, her husband Jonathan Goodrich, and their son Seth have built a very distinct display of Hostas at their home in Elroy, Wisconsin. They are excited to be bringing a slice of their retail operation back to the AHS convention. Their online catalog lists an astounding 2872 varieties of hosta.

Windswept Creations

Sandie Markland (AHS membership secretary) began her journey as an artist in early 2000 after dedicating over 20 years to government service in the political arena on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.   Her first (and still favorite) artistic endeavor revolved around Stone Spirits, her original and unique faces carved from volcanic rock. Later additions to her artistic work include jewelry and art objects made using genuine sea glass collected from the beautiful beaches of North Carolina's Outer Banks.