Hosta

A shade-tolerant hosta with glossy foliage and fragrant white late-summer flowers for paths, containers, and woodland edges.

Siebold hosta (Hosta sieboldiana) is the big, blue, heavily corrugated hosta that most people picture when they picture a hosta at all, and the parent of a great many of the giant blue cultivars sold today. It builds a low spreading mound about 18 to 24 inches tall but four to five feet across, made of thick, wide-oval leaves up to 14 inches long that are deeply ribbed between the veins, cupped, and drawn out to a fine point. They emerge a smoky blue-grey in spring, from a waxy bloom on the surface that gradually weathers off, so the same plant reads blue in May and green by August. Nearly white funnel-shaped flowers open on upright scapes in early summer, held at or just above the leaves. It is a shade plant in the fullest sense - it takes heavy shade and dry root competition under trees, including black walnut - and its one real enemy is slugs, which turn that magnificent foliage into lace if the site stays wet. It is also one of the most slug-resistant hostas, because the leaf substance is unusually thick.