The Hartmann’s Hosta Garden

Jim and Sheila Hartmann host more than 800 varieties of your favorite green leafy plant.

By: Judy Arginteanu | From the issue: August 2011

Photo: Emily J. Davis

Jam and Sheila Hartmann take great pride in every one of their 800 varieties of hostas, especially hybrids they've named themselves--Sookai, after their daughters, and Dammit Jim, after a line in the first Star Trek TV series.

Beware the lure of the hosta.

The plants that are a mainstay of any shade garden are grown mainly for their foliage. To the uninitiated—or, perhaps, unenlightened—they’re those ordinary, leafy green plants: boring—drab, even—and certainly no match for showier, colorful blooms.

But they grow on you (pun intended). Case in point: Jim and Sheila Hartmann’s garden. The one-acre yard, nestled just east of Parker’s Lake, is a hosta-lover’s dream, and will make even the most resistant start to appreciate the subtlety, beauty and infinite variety of these amazingly versatile plants.

The Hartmanns boast about 800 varieties, from dainty, petite “minis” like the Mouse Ears family, or the tiny little hosta that’s been growing in the hollow of a rock for a good seven years, to huge blue plants that can grow up to 6 feet tall, with textured leaves that can grow nearly a foot wide.

In fact, the garden is now officially a “collection,” labeled and grouped (admittedly sometimes whimsically). And though 800 might seem a lot, “We’re pickers compared to some of the collectors,” Jim Hartmann says of how they got their start. “There are over 8,000 named varieties.” The Hartmanns began by selecting just a few plants for their yard, but quickly became enamored by hostas, and so their “collection” was born.

“I’ve often said I’ve had prettier gardens when I had more variety [of different plants],” he says. “But when it went from a garden to collection, a collection has to be displayed a little differently. It’s the difference between displaying art in your home and in a museum.”

So, for example, if people want to see what the Sweet Innocence hosta looks like, it’s not only labeled, Jim has it in a database, and it’s marked as “F17” for its location in the garden. Their garden was part of the American Hosta Society’s convention tour last year when the group met in the Twin Cities, bringing fellow gardening and hosta fans from as far away as Europe and Asia.

But labels or no, this is by no means a plot of plants lined up in dull, orderly rows like soldiers. For one thing, the Hartmanns designed and built it all themselves. Some of that was practical (“if we couldn’t do it ourselves, it didn’t get done,” Hartmann says), but some was more personal. “Not designing and tending your own gardens is sort of like sending your kids off to be raised by someone else,” Sheila Hartmann says.

And the garden contains not only artful arrangements of the hostas, but companion plants and a lot of garden art, like the penny-covered gazing ball one of their daughters made, a pump that came from Sheila’s grandparents house, and the little statue of the ancient Egyptian pharaoh peeking out behind the King Tut hosta, just to name a few.