When Phyllis Weidman arrived in St. Louis 30 years ago from Columbus, Ohio, she brought along a house full of furniture and a number of small green friends. They had names like “Paul’s Glory” and “Edge of Night” and they were tucked in a U-Haul truck of special possessions she and her husband Jim drove to their new home in Kirkwood. The move to St. Louis came about when the St. Louis Art Museum hired Jim as its new development officer. And Jim, who loved hostas and gardening almost as much as Phyllis, was more than happy to have them on board.

    Phyllis began her fascination with what is probably America’s favorite foliage plant when she joined a garden club in Columbus. A woman named Nancy Gill also was a member of the club. Nancy, who raised hostas, had a large hosta with rounded blue-green leaves, named after her. She introduced Phyllis to another friend, Handy Hatfield, who it turns out had a medium-sized, lime green hosta edged in chartreuse named after him. Phyllis was hooked. 

    The back yard of their new home, which covered a shady hillside, offered the perfect location to relocate their rooted friends. But it wasn’t easy. The rocky ground made digging a challenge. But rather than discarding the rocks they encountered, Phyllis and Jim saved them and incorporated them into garden beds. Little by little they claimed the ground and added retaining walls and pathway platforms where necessary. 

    The couple also joined the St. Louis Hosta Society. “We got to know other people and see their gardens. You can go kind of crazy,” Phyllis says with a laugh. “You think, ‘Oh, I have to have that one’ and then you have to make the garden bigger. It can get out of control really quickly.”

    As Phyllis and Jim amassed their collection of approximately 300 hostas, they also developed long-term friendships. “We were both interested,” she explains. “We went places to see hostas and had couples from all over the country that we knew. I had a husband who would travel at the drop of a hat.”

    Phyllis has been a volunteer at the Missouri Botanical Garden for 26 years and was working in the Chinese Garden when the Garden’s hosta area began to undergo renovation. “They asked me to come down and take a look because I was a volunteer at the Garden already,” she recalls. She has been using her volunteer talents with the Garden’s hostas ever since. 

     Jim Weidman passed away three years ago, and Phyllis has decided that her garden is at its maximum capacity. But her interest in the shade-loving plants that come in every hue and pattern of green imaginable and range in size from shrub to miniature is on-going. She is currently president of the St. Louis Hosta Society and vice-president-member services of the American Hosta Society. 

    “They (hostas) are always surprising you,” she notes. “One year, a plant will be big and glorious, and you will be amazed by it. The next year, the earth changes and it is not so big and glorious. You coddle it along. It is intriguing to me. Learning about hostas and how they grow has become a vocation for me.” 

    Her secret to successfully growing beautiful hostas? “Good soil and lots and lots of water,” she advises.