We love hostas for his or her lush, structural, shapely foliage and summer season bloom scapes. The perennials illuminate shaded areas, cooling down the show in tones of blue and jade or brightening it up in scorching chartreuse and gold. From strappy and curly to broad and cupped, hostas carry dynamic foliage to anchor the border.
One other benefit of hostas is their versatility. They work in formal and casual preparations, from basis plantings to woodland edges to containers. Their lavender blooms draw hummingbirds and different pollinators, whereas the foliage stays engaging all season. Hostas complement different perennials, each blooming or with foliar curiosity, and shrubs, from hydrangeas to boxwood to conifers. They’re additionally low-maintenance and sturdy.
To duplicate these qualities of hostas in different backyard areas, like people who obtain extra solar, warmth, or much less soil moisture and natural richness than hostas want, hosta lookalikes make good stand-ins. Whereas the good-looking perennial is certainly one of a form (with quite a few cultivars), different specimens with dynamic foliage are able to carry out in its stead.
Agapanthus
Agapanthus options thick, strappy leaves and rising flower scapes in lavender, blue, and white. With their wands of tubular blooms, they make glorious border plantings and deal with extra solar than hostas (though additionally they make pretty enhances). The evergreen foliage is engaging even when the perennials aren’t in flower.
Splendid soils are fertile, moist, and well-drained, although the southern African native tolerates drought and warmth. These hosta lookalikes perennialize in heat rising zones. In chilly climates, overwinter agapanthus indoors, the place it grows as a houseplant in vivid mild.
From tall varieties like ‘Queen of the Nile’ to dense, compact types like ‘Peter Pan,’ the vary of sizes fits a wide range of gardens. ‘Fireworks’ holds Royal Horticultural Society Award of Backyard Benefit standing with full globes of vivid white bell blooms with violet-blue throats. The massive umbels’ prime stems that attain over two ft tall.
Wild Ginger
Wild ginger provides a local hosta different that covers extra floor as a step by step spreading groundcover. The delicate magnificence boasts dynamic foliage, though with a decrease profile than its hosta counterparts. Coronary heart-shaped leaves are thick and darkish with silver mottling, relying on the range.
Asarum canadense is a North American herbaceous perennial with giant leaves and a compact, mounding behavior. Fleshy roots are edible and have a spicy ginger aroma and taste.
Wild ginger slowly types a dense colony. Moist and well-drained soils are optimum, however these hosta lookalikes tolerate numerous varieties, together with clay. Plant a gaggle or mass to cowl essentially the most floor over time. They make a delicate woodland understory or edge planting and deal with deep shade.
Epimedium
Epimediums make our listing of hosta lookalikes due to their daring foliage and summer season blooms. Additionally referred to as barrenwort or fairy wings, epimediums develop in difficult shade circumstances. They stand up to heavy shade and dry circumstances—a difficult spot for a lot of.
Epimediums have wing-shaped leaves that function dramatic mottling, blotching, and venation. Delicate, spurred flowers emerge in summer season with a flurry of visible curiosity. The low-maintenance, compact picks are impactful in a gaggle and mixed with different shade-loving perennials like ferns, astilbe, wild ginger, and bleeding coronary heart.
‘Fairly in Pink’ has candy blooms in rose and pale pink with bronzey-pink and inexperienced heart-shaped leaves. ‘Pink Champagne’ sparkles with blushing blooms and leaves and is an RHS Award of Backyard Benefit recipient.
Solomon’s Seal
Solomon’s seal and hosta share the identical household, Asparagaceae, though the Polygonatum genus consists of native North American species. The structural perennial has scaffolding foliage alongside upright, arching stems. Like hosta, their mint inexperienced or creamy variegated leaves brighten shady zones. In spring, greenish-white bell blooms droop from every node, lining the stems.
Native species embody P. biflorum (easy Solomon’s seal) and P. pubescens (bushy Solomon’s seal), each occurring naturally in japanese North America with a variety. False Solomon’s seal (Maianthemum racemosum) is one other hosta lookalike in a local species. Starry, feathery, ivory flowers seem on the ends of stems. Their mild perfume attracts pollinators, and the berries that comply with help wildlife.
Hardy Cyclamen
Hardy cyclamen perennializes to type a low carpet of heart-shaped leaves with fall and winter blooms, relying on the range.
C. coum blooms in late winter and early spring with clusters of pink, rosy purple, and or white flowers. C. hederifolium is the hardiest and best to develop, with aromatic pink blooms from late summer season to October and November. The diminutive leaves of each species type a cushion in deep inexperienced with silver patterning.
Each of those hosta lookalikes boast Award of Backyard Benefit standing for efficiency, chilly hardiness, and decoration. They unfold slowly by tubers and reseed to type colonies. They tolerate dry shade and carry out finest in natural soils with good drainage. They’re sluggish to determine, and beginning with a lot of vegetation provides the colony a head begin.
Bleeding Coronary heart
Bleeding coronary heart brings woodland and wildflower attraction with heart-shaped, pendulous flowers that droop from delicate stems.
Dicentra has puffy blooms in white, pink, and fuchsia in late spring. It enters summer season dormancy after the spring present and as temperatures rise. Use summer-blooming and leafy perennials to disguise the fading foliage. The wildflowers mix nicely with columbine, heuchera, hardy geraniums, and wild ginger.
Dicentra eximia is a North American wild bleeding coronary heart with hanging pink (typically white) hearts. The minimize foliage is ferny and feathery and withstands drier circumstances as soon as established.
Caladiums
Caladiums carry splashes of coloration with their tapestry of leaves. They fulfill the position of an annual hosta lookalike, economical, and simple to plant with small tubers. They showcase in containers and within the border. Their arrow-shaped leaves function dynamic mottling, venation, and blotching in greens, whites, reds, and pinks.
Plant the tubers a couple of inches deep when late spring/early summer season soil temperatures rise about 60°F (16°C). Water them recurrently for quick growth. With constant water, the colourful show lasts till cool climate arrives.
Caladiums thrive in shady areas, with some varieties (particularly purple lance-leaved) suited to full solar. For many of us, caladiums are a single-season show. They perennialize in frost-free climates and should come again with winter mulching in zone 8.
Acanthus
Acanthus is a larger-scale, outsized shade specimen in foliage and flowers. Its sturdy, architectural leaves are darkish, shiny inexperienced and deeply minimize with textural curiosity. The lengthy, broad leaves unfurl and arch as a stately base for summer season blooms. Tall spikes of pinkish-white flowers with deep purple bracts are putting and final for weeks.
Acanthus grows in dry or moist soils so long as they’re well-draining. These hosta lookalikes make a low-maintenance grouped planting for affect. It does finest with morning solar or dappled mild with afternoon shade safety.
Ginger Lily
Ginger lilies are sun-loving hosta lookalikes. They develop tall, leafy stalks topped with clustered blooms and a candy summer season perfume. Flowers in crisp white, buttery yellow, or orange resemble butterflies with their petal association and lengthy stamens. Variegated varieties have crisp white and inexperienced foliage to additional spotlight the association.
Ginger lilies create a daring tropical look. Use them as a backdrop to different flowering perennials. They unfold by rhizomes and may have management by slicing and digging roots if the unfold or crowding turns into an excessive amount of.
Ginger lilies are robust vegetation the place hardy and develop as annuals or container plantings in chilly climates. They do finest in moist, organically wealthy soils with good drainage.
Foxglove
Foxgloves carry huge bell blooms in spring and summer season, like an exaggerated hosta flower. The tubular blooms crowd the tall stems in purple, rose, peach, and creamy white with freckled throats. Every blossom attracts bumblebees who wriggle in to gather pollen and nectar.
Foxgloves placed on a showy show till temperatures rise (in areas with scorching summers, deal with them as cool-season annuals). These hosta lookalikes set their thick basal foliage and roots within the first season and flower within the second season earlier than going to seed and fading.
Aralia
Whereas some within the Aralia genus are invasive in the US (like A. elata, generally often known as the Japanese angelica tree), others are native or extra well-behaved species. Aralia cordata ‘Solar King’, with lush, vivid inexperienced foliage, is a non-aggressive selection and lends a tropical look to the shade backyard. The chartreuse and gold tones and lengthy, compound leaves make them a standout.
‘Solar King’ is an award winner for its efficiency, decoration, and reliability. The dynamic foliage of those hosta lookalikes provides three seasons of curiosity, together with white flowers in the summertime and darkish berries to comply with. Pollinators and birds recognize them, and people do too, within the edible leaves, shoots, and roots of Aralia cordata.