Georgia Hosta Society

bringing enthusiasts together since 1984

Recent Tours

May 23, 2018

Fern Ridge Farms
Cedar Bluff, Alabama

After battling Atlanta traffic, what a peaceful respite was our visit to Eleanor Craig's garden and greenhouse! Following a delicious lunch of local barbecue Eleanor, gave us a presentation and handout of ferns that perform well in southern gardens. Then she and her staff assisted our group in shopping the abundant fern and companion shade plants grown at Fern Ridge Farm.


May 19, 2018

Waverly Woods
Athens, Georgia

A wrap-up session of the 2018 Annual Hosta Show and Sale was followed by a tour of the gardens of show co-chairs and neighbors Sandra Bussell and Pat Brussack. A ramble around Sandra’s verdant hillside garden, easily traversed on elegant stone pathways, provided great ideas for shade garden companion plantings. Then it was on to Pat’s sprawling, gently-sloped two-acre woodland garden for a stroll in formal garden rooms created with perennials and shrubs and a perusal of her test plot of 55 cultivars of epimediums.



September 15, 2017

Garden of Harold and Kathy McDonell
Fayetteville, Georgia

Our members were treated not just to beautifully-grown hostas, but to an extensive and artistic interplanting of shade-loving companion plants. Harold’s hybridizing area was intriguing and inspiring, with its color-coded bits of electrical wire wrapped around the seed pods on bloom scapes to mark crosses. And there was the memorable vista of the garden's picture-perfect moss lawn with a surrounding shrub-and-perennial border and charming goldfish pond.

September 15, 2017

Pine Forest Gardens
Tyrone, Georgia

Both the private home garden and the extensive commercial hosta garden of Richard Jolly were on show. And what a show it was, with hostas beautifully integrated into the landscape! The combination of growing technology, lots of hard work, and TLC produced an array of plants at the mail order nursery that had visitors reaching for their wallets, eager to take home some of the extensive selection of miniature and small hostas.

June 12, 2017

South Carolina Botanical Garden
Clemson, South Carolina
Alston-Binic Garden
Salem, South Carolina

Georgia Hosta Society members were guided through these gardens by fellow members and South Carolina residents Linda Alston-Binic and Chuck Cruickshank. The first stop was Clemson University’s AHS Charles and Betty Cruickshank Hosta Display Garden. Established in 2003, the garden was the conception of Chuck and his late wife Betty and features 400 varieties of hosta. A short drive to Salem, South Carolina, took us to the incredible Hillside garden of Linda Alston-Binic. Linda grew hostas in the deep rich loam and cool temperatures of the Ohio Valley before relocating to South Carolina. She has done an admirable job of establishing a hosta garden on a steep rock-and-root-filled hill in the heat and humidity of the South.

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