Hosta's and earth worms

I've tried planting hostas in a shadey spot with no luck and somewhere I read something about worms being bad for hostas. Is that true? Where I'm planting them is loaded with worms.

Earthworms are very plant friendly. Not only do they aerate the soil they also enrich it with their castings which are rich in nitrogen and potassium. Their burrowing helps with water percolation as well.

I've been reading about how earthworm castings added as a dressing to hibiscus will discourage whiteflies as well. I bought some earthworm castings to see if it will work on my Confederate Rose which was decimated by whiteflies last year.

Lucky you if you have lots of them.

X

You were probably thinking about slugs which do love to eat hosta leaves.

I would guess Corey does not have slugs, they hate our salty soil down here but we do have these large snails that hang out and chew on things. Also, there are few hostas that thrive in the lowcountry. No matter what setting you have them in, they just do not like the heat or humidity.

There is another plant, in the ginger family, that looks a lot like a hosta and would give you the same effect. It is about the same height and has sort of iridescent patterns on the leaves. Gosh, I wish I could remember the name. I'll try and come up with it as they do well around here.

I did some searching and it is kaempferia I was referring to as a hosta substitute. There are many varieties and some of them bloom before the leaves come up.

http://arboretum.sfasu.edu/gaylilies/kaempferia/

That might do it. It was thinking of trying some sort of ginger.

Core
Have you thought about good old cast iron plant? There are lots of new varieties besides the old stand-by. It's a tough plant-hence the name-and different leafs, too.
tgg

Don't know anything about cast iron plants. I'll check into it, thanks.

The Plant Delights catalog used to have quite a few. Check on their web site for them at
plantdelights.com. Use the Browse the Catalog button and look for aspidistra.