Fransen Hostas was the destination today! We drove west through a beautiful part of The Netherlands to Ter Aar for their Hosta weekend! Open on Sunday!

The 2009 catalogue contains 1001 Hostas in the regular list and more than 500 varieties in their limited supply. Outside, the show garden has many Hostas and a few other shade loving plants planted in the full ground. A footpath leads you through this to let you see what you too can have after a few years !

Inside the nursery the Hostas are container grown and displayed in alphabetical order to make it easy(difficult?) to select. What a great way to learn about Hostas! I'm sure nobody leaves with just one plant.

"This selection contains the new introductions and Hostas that haven't been seen for a long time. These are not in the 2009 catalogue and are available for purchase after our open weekend at the end of June"

After using their website www.hostakweker.nl or www.hostaparadise.com I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted. Ofcourse some photo's are not like the real thing. Some were better and some Hostas didn't even stay on the list! There was only an empty space of the one Hosta that I really wanted. "Paradise Glory". It is a beautiful Hosta that will be by our front door. I always said that where we live is a little piece of paradise! Joyce and Marco Fransen are very helpfull. He used his bycicle to go to one of their other "greenhouse's" to find one. This is what makes shopping at a family run nursery so special, Service and heaps of knowlege. We drove home with two catalogue's and Hosta's: Fire and Ice(2), Paradise Glory, Orange Marmalade, Praying Hands, Liberty, Popcorn and the free Hosta of the month American Icon! Taking the total of Hostas in our backyard to 37 and 3 for the front yard! The answer is - there is still room!