Reblooming Hostas

Some hosta species and cultivars are often referred to as "rebloomers". That means that certain hostas may bloom more than once during the growing season, particularly if the first flush of scapes are cut off at ground level after flowering. Reblooming hostas can offer added interest in the late season hosta garden.

While it is true that "reblooming" hostas may bloom twice, or even three times, throughout the growing season, they do not actually bloom again on the same scape.

W. George Schmid writes,

" 'Reblooming' may be a misnomer. Hostas do NOT rebloom on the same scape. In mild winter areas, I have had H. 'Undulata' come up really early in spring and come to bloom. As the year proceeded into summer, it would raise new scapes and then bloom on these newly raised scapes. I did not dig up the rhizomes at that time, but my educated guess is that they sent up new scapes from new shoots. I have seen new shoots come up from very close to the existing shoots, but did not unearth the rhizome to see if it came from the same shoot or very near the old shoot. So what we have is two blooming seasons, an early one and a later one from the same rhizome. It takes prolonged warm temps and plenty of rain to make this work, as well as plenty of nutrients in the soil."

"While I believe this is temperature and moisture based, some hostas will be prone to bloom twice or even three times, while others simply will not raise duplicate blooms, no matter what the environment dishes out. I do not believe that second shoots arise from the old shoot; rather, the rhizome produces a new set of shoots (actually next year's shoots) that will bloom if environmental forces allow it. You can force some hostas to do that in a greenhouse and that should prove the ecological cause for this phenomenon."

"I have never seen a true rebloomer (same scape) during my 50 years messing around with the genus. 'Rebloom' is the wrong term. I would suggest that 'repeat bloomer' might be correct, but that is also subject to interpretation. To describe it in a sentence, one might say 'late season repeat bloomer'."

Here is a list of species and cultivars that are sometimes referred to as "rebloomers":