Great Expectations Hosta Plants

Hosta Great Expectations

If you're a fan of big-leaved plants, then you'll love Hosta Great Expectations! A mature specimen (hostas are also known as plantain lilies) reaches up to 70cm tall with a spread of 1.2m, making quite a statement. The large, variegated, oval leaves are thick and puckered, with creamy-white centres and wide, irregular, blue-green margins when fully mature. The central splotch emerges gold in spring before ageing to creamy white.

Great Expectations' leaves are naturally stiff and they have some resistance to slug damage, as gastropods prefer thinner-leaves cultivars. From June to July, white, lily-like flowers appear above the foliage. It's a slow grower, but worth the wait, as it's very long-lived. 

Browse more Hosta varieties, or all of our perennial plants.

Features

• Foliage: Gold centres age to cream with blue-green margins.
• Flower: White.
• Flowering: June to-July.
• Height: 70cm.
• Spread: 1.2m.
• Spacing: 1.2m.
• Position: Shade, partial shade or dappled shade.
• Soil: Loam, clay, sand, moist but well drained.

Great In Your Garden...

Large hostas like Great Expectations are invaluable for the shady garden, giving interest, structure and colour from spring until autumn. They're adaptable enough to look good in cottage gardens or in formal settings, Japanese-style arrangements along with Acers and ferns and even the shadier patches of a jungle garden with those big leaves.

Perfectly at home in a wildlife or woodland garden, use a relatively slug-resistant variety like Great Expectations in a low-maintenance garden if you live in a wetter part of the country (it doesn't like to dry out).

A collection of hostas makes excellent weed-suppressant ground cover for shady and semi-shady spots and Great Expectations looks right at home sited next to a pond or water feature. The leaves provide coverage for dying bulb foliage and hostas can cope well with city pollution.

Did You Know...

Hostas are edible - use the rolled-up leaf as it emerges in spring. Cooking depends on the size. Small ones can be stir-fried for a few minutes. Thicker ones are better boiled and used as a vegetable.

Hostas like rich, well-drained but moist soil in shaded/semi-shaded position. Add compost when planting and keep well watered until established and during dry spells.

Water during dry spells. In spring, apply general purpose fertiliser and mulch well. Remove dead flower heads. Protect from slugs and snails. Divide large clumps from autumn-early spring.