Hosta experts to speak
World-renowned hosta couple Mike and Kathy Shadrack will be guest speakers April 20 at the meeting of the Daffodil & Hosta Society of Western Pennsylvania.
The meeting will be held from 1 to 4 p.m. at Northland Public Library, 300 Cumberland Road, North Hills.
Mike Shadrack, a retired London Metropolitan Police officer, is president of the Western New York Hosta Society and has been a member of the American Hosta Society since 1992. He also has been a member of the British Hosta and Hemerocallis Society for 22 years.
Shadrack has been growing hostas since 1986 and has been trying to hybridize almost as long. He became enamored with hostas through fish-keeping, when their reflection in a garden pond drew his attention in a TV gardening program. He and his wife maintain a large collection of modern cultivars and a garden devoted to small hostas.
Shadrack also enjoys photography and has library of about 5,800 slides of hosta varieties and hosta gardens, many of which have been published in European and U.S. catalogues and magazines. He is co-author and photographer of “The Color Encyclopedia of Hostas.” The book was named the 2005 Reference Book of the Year by the British Garden Writers Guild.
Kathy Guest Shadrack, who has been gardening intensively for more than 35 years, wrote “The Book of Little Hostas” that was published in November 2010 by Timber Press.