In this extract from AG 19 July 1975, Christopher Lloyd enthuses over the good-tempered plants that are hostas
THE plantain lilies or hostas are such good-tempered plants and offer so wide a choice of varieties attractive either for their leaves or for their flowers and occasionally for both, that they are among the most popular hardy plants today. The value of their foliage to flower arrangers has much to do with this, but in the garden they are as efficient weed-suppressing ground-cover plants as any of the evergreen plants more commonly used for this purpose. Hostas vanish in winter, but their umbrella of foliage in the growing season hardly lets a glimmer of light reach the ground beneath them so weeds do not stand a chance.
Some hostas, or plantain lilies,
