Ever since the rise of the digital camera, I've been using it to take pictures of hostas. It's cheap, you can quickly see the result, and the pictures serve as a replacement for my weak photographic memory.
Other advantages: later on one can look back at plants when they were young, look at the shape and color of the flower, the form and color of the scape and the bracts, the form and color of the seed pods. Pictures can bring back the memories of lost sports. And because digital pictures are automatically dated they give you a timeframe: when did the hosta emerge, when did flowering start, ...
Why share my pictures? I already have them for myself and not sharing them would save me a lot of time. It might sound naive, but I still believe in the true spirit of the Internet: sharing information with others. Hostas are more than things you plant in your garden to impress neighbours. They are more than things you measure every year to see if your plant is bigger than everyone else's. Hostas, like humans, are the result of thousands of years of evolution. Look at them and study them, you will not be disappointed.
The first batch is a selection from pictures from 1999 to 2003. Most pictures are from my own plants, some were taken in the hosta garden of Danny Van Eechaute, and at the nurseries of Marco Fransen and Jan van den Top. Pictures are grouped by topic, like hosta buds, hosta flowers, hosta leaves, hosta species, ...
Some 400 pictures from last year, covering March to July, so not a lot of flowers. Will add the other months later on.