Guest Hosta Blogger ... Hans A Hansen
- Hans A Hansen
- 11 hours ago
- 5 min read
We are delighted to have a guest blog from Hans Hansen Head of the Walters Gardens hybridising team. Walters Gardens is one of North America's leading wholesale perennial growers.
Hans is well respected throughout the industry, for his fantasic new Hosta introductions.
All of which are firm favourites and very popular here in the UK.
I was raised on a small dairy farm in southern Minnesota, which is considered the Upper Midwest in the USA. We had 30 milk cows, shared telephone service (party line) and the closest town of Jeffers had around 400 people. In the 1970s most of the farmers also had a garden and raised their own vegetables, some families also raised ornamental plants. Old fashioned poppies, peonies, bearded iris, tiger lilies were the dominant pass-along varieties.
From a very young age I loved plants and would beg for plants or gift certificates on my birthday to be used at the local Farmer Seed and Nursery garden center. It was there as a young boy that I purchased my first 3 hostas. ‘Krossa Regal’, ‘August Moon’ and ‘Blue Max’ (Tokudama). That was about the extent of the Hosta selection in the area back then. It wasn’t long after while in high school I began mail ordering hostas, including ‘Frances Williams’ and ‘Gold Standard’
I went to an agricultural college (the University of Minnesota, Waseca) for Floriculture/Greenhouse Production. One of the classes was Plant Biology taught by Clayton Oslund. He also had a perennial mail order nursery called Shady Oaks that specialized in plants that grew in shade. After completing my Bachelor’s Degree I returned to Waseca and worked at Shady Oaks Nursery as Director of New Plant Development.
During the next 15 years I managed the tissue culture lab and gardened on a 5-acre wooded property. The lab produced around 1 million plants annually – mostly Hostas. I grew and developed Hostas in my garden which was a remnant piece of native woodland, in the spring there were thousands of North American native woodland plants in bloom, hepatica, trillium, bloodroot, phlox divaricata, trout lilies, and spring beauties. During this time I developed over 50 Hostas including ‘Fire and Ice’, ‘Dark Shadows’, ‘Earth Angel’, ‘Stained Glass’, ‘Old Glory’, and ‘Pandora’s Box’ (pictures from left to right)
I also worked with ploidy conversion, the Hostas ‘Touch of Class’ being a tetraploid conversion of ‘June’, ‘Cathedral Windows’ from ‘Stained Glass’, ‘Atlantis’ from ‘Abba Dabba Do’ and ‘American Sweetheart’ a tetraploid conversion from ‘Sea Thunder’.
In 2009 I left Minnesota and moved to Michigan where I became the director of New Plant Development for Walters Gardens. Walters Gardens is the nation’s largest wholesale grower of bare root perennials. In addition to 1500 acres of field production, an additional 60 percent of the nursery sales comes from young plant liner production. Hostas are the number one genera in terms of plant material sold. The nursery is unique in the fact it is located near Lake Michigan in southwestern Michigan. The soil is very sandy, an ideal situation for harvesting bare root product and shipping it free of soil. The greenhouse grown liners are grown in soilless media. The climate is moderate because of the close proximity to the large lake which moderates the high and low winter temperatures.
Although New Plant Development works with around 80 different genera of plants, we are best know for crossing hardy Hibiscus, Baptisia, Nepeta, Hostas, Monarda, Mangave, Heuchera and Leucanthemum. A few perennial introductions of note include Hibiscus ‘Berry Awesome’, Baptisia ‘Lemon Meringue’ Nepeta ‘Cats Meow’, Mondarda Sugar Buzz and Leading Lady Series, Mangave ‘Praying Hands’ (exhibited at Chelsea Flower Show), Heuchera ‘Black Pearl’ and Heuchera ‘Wildberry’, and Leucanthemum ‘Banana Cream II’
Unlike the work I did in Minnesota primarily inducing and stabilising Hosta sports, almost all of my work here at Walters Gardens has been with hand cross pollination of Hostas. My main focus has been on intensifying the colouration of blue Hostas, developing large, variegated Hostas, and distinct variegated Hostas. Those are the 3 main areas of strong sales for us. As much as I love miniature and dwarf Hostas, that segment of our sales has always been small. Americans seem to equate size with value and are not willing to pay the same price for a dwarf Hosta as they would for a large Hosta even though the production cost is similar.
The hallmark of my breeding program has been ruffles. I love the undulating leaf margin, the more extreme the better. I developed a breeding line through Hosta ‘Neptune’ with its lovely wedge-shaped leaf and intensified the ruffled edge.
Some descendants include ‘Waterslide’, ‘Dancing with Dragons’, ‘Voices in the Wind’, ‘Wild Imagination’ and ‘Tears in Heaven’. Hosta ‘Tears in Heaven’ is probably my most intense blue introduction to date. (pictures from left to right)
Hosta ‘Silly String’ has a fantastic growth rate, a profusion of attractive purple flowers, and lovely wiggly, narrow blue leaves. It has been a favourite since its introduction as a commemorative plant at the 2021 National Hosta Convention. Recently it was a runner up at the 2025 Chelsea Flower Show. It works well as a container plant, a front of the shaded border Hosta, or used as an edging plant.
I work with 2 other hybridisers at Walters to cross pollinate, usually we make around 500 sets of crosses on the Hostas per year, each cross replicated 10-20 times to ensure take, and a full range of seed diversity. Only the handful of the best seedlings from each cross are lined out and evaluated. Our goal is up to, but no more than 5 Hosta introductions per year so the bar is very, very high. Many of the seedlings are aged around 10 years as it takes that long for the variegation pattern to settle into an edge or margin form, and then a number of years to evaluate the plant for vigour, distinction and garden value.
Since moving to Walters Gardens I have developed around an additional 60 Hostas, in addition to the ones already mentions some favourite's include ‘Diamond Lake’, ‘Hope Springs Eternal’, ‘Gigantosaurus’, and ‘Miss America’
There isn’t anything I would rather do than work with plants. A wise person once said “find a job you like and you will never work a day in your life.” I am surrounded by great friends I work with and the plants I love.
We certainly love all of Hans introductions and cannot wait to see his new Hostas over the coming years. Thank you for sharing your story.
We do have a limited number of Hans's introductions mentioned in his blog. If currently available the links are highlighted in green.
Hans's Hostas have always been firm favourites with our customers here in the UK. These are a few more of his wonderful Hostas we currently have available .....
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Rewela Hostas
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