FLOYD -- Captain Kirk lives here, along with Peter Pan, Miss Saigon and Paul Revere.

They are garden guests in a summer home and theirs is the hostess with the mostest.

Looking every bit the queen bee in her chichi straw hat with the pretty silk flowers, Jan Coartney is, indisputably, the hosta hostess.

The Blue Cadets salute her. Queen Josephine bows to her. Yang and Yin worship her.

And hosta aficionados flock to her.

Coartney's business, Granny Janny's Hostas, started out as a hobby.

Her husband, Jim, had always worked with plants. The retired Virginia Tech horticulture professor couldn't imagine a day without playing in the dirt.

But Jan Coartney -- "Granny Janny" to her seven grandchildren -- stayed clean until 1985.

"We had a fire and lost our home in '85," the 64-year-old retired nurse said, explaining that the experience was very upsetting for her.

"I did a lot of reading and it said being outside helped with stress and depression. I started working outside with the plants."

Dr. Mike Payne, a Blacksburg physician and one of Coartney's best customers, calls that "horticulture therapy."

"That's what I do myself," he said, explaining that he loves to visit Granny Janny's Hostas, where more than 2,000 lush green plants grow on beautifully landscaped islands surrounding the charming old home the Coartneys bought seven years ago.

Jan Coartney's interest in hostas bloomed on a trip to her home state of Illinois to visit her mother, an avid gardener who had some hostas that needed dividing.

Hostas -- those perennial plants native to Japan, China and Korea -- made their way to America in the mid-1800s.

Named for Austrian physician Nicolaus Thomas Host, the shade-tolerant plants are known for their foliage, with leaves that may be solid in color or variegated in combinations of blue, green, white and yellow.

But it wasn't the plant's beauty that hooked her on hostas.

"They're forgiving," she said. "Hostas live. They're pretty hardy."

On her way back from Illinois with her mother's plants, Coartney stopped at a North Carolina nursery and loaded the back of her husband's Mazda pickup with more hostas. Realizing she had $250 left over from her vacation money, she decided to spend it.

"They weren't cheap even back then," she recalled. "It didn't fill up the pickup bed. ... I put some in the ground and some in pots. I divided them the next year."

And that's how her business took root.

At first, Coartney just sold hostas on Mother's Day weekend and Memorial Day weekend. She was living in a rental house in downtown Floyd at the time and didn't have the acreage she has now.

Since moving to the house and its 7 acres on the edge of town, her hosta venture has blossomed.

"For the last six years, it has been a seasonal business," she noted. "It just keeps growing. I never dreamed when I started in this that it would become the business it has. There are people who make a good living selling hostas."

This year, Coartney expects to make a profit for the first time.

The expenses of building a potting shed -- designed and constructed by her husband -- as well as equipment needed to get the business going ate up her income in previous years.

But Coartney would still be in the green even if she wasn't in the black.

She just enjoys seeing people enjoy her hostas.

"There's something about coming here that makes people enjoy the outdoors," she said as she looked out at her shady lawn with its perennial profusion. "You can tell they're relaxed while they're here."

"I love to go over there," said Payne, who estimates he has between 20 and 30 varieties of hostas in his own garden.

"That's just a drop in the bucket compared to how many there are," he noted.

Indeed.

There are at least 4,000 different varieties of hostas. To the untrained eye, it's often hard to tell some varieties apart. But to hosta lovers, the quest for a particular variety is almost an obsession.

Coartney has one customer who logs all his hostas on his Palm Pilot. When he visits Granny Janny's Hostas, he can spot a new variety immediately.

"People are particular," she said. "Some of the hosta collectors are serious hosta collectors."

Linda Fiedler, an award-winning quilter who lives in Meadows of Dan, uses her eye for color when selecting hostas for her extensive garden.

"Her garden looks like her quilts," Coartney said.

Fiedler cited two varieties -- Guacamole and Elegans -- as favorites. This year, she tried a new hosta called Captain Kirk.

"It's almost a chartreuse green," she noted. "It really shows up in the shade."

"The nice thing about Jan's display garden is you can see what the hostas will look like when they mature," Fiedler added.

"It really helps you see what your plant is going to look like at maturity. It helps you find the right spot, too."

Hosta plants reach full maturity in four to eight years. They die down every fall and come back in the spring. They are resistant to viruses but not to the creatures that love to eat them, primarily slugs and deer.

Some slugs can be deterred simply by putting a saucer of beer near the plants. Bigger slugs are attracted to the amber brew, dive in and drown. The beer blast doesn't work on all slugs, however.

Coartney uses a product called Sluggo, a granular pellet available at garden supply stores, to control slugs in her hosta plots.

Deer, of course, are another matter.

The Coartneys' Australian shepherd, Sparky, usually keeps them at bay. But some hosta varieties are so irresistible to the whitetails, even Sparky's paws are tied.

"I just put in a real expensive hosta," Coartney groaned. "It was in one night. The deer ate it right down to the ground."

Coartney's hostas run between $5 and $35, depending on the size and variety. The priciest hosta she ever sold was a relatively rare variety known as Embroidery, which went for $40.

"I don't have the most expensive hostas," she said. "Some people will pay as much as $1,000 at an auction."

Running the hosta business is a full-time summer job for Coartney, who admits she couldn't handle it without the help of her husband and grandchildren.

Starting in mid-April, she says, she spends between 40 and 50 hours a week tending to the hostas and the hosta-loving customers.

"Well," she shrugged, "I don't do much housework."

In the winter, Coartney puts her garden guests to bed in a plastic-covered winter house. Many of them are tissue-culture plants she has prepared for the next season.

It's a relief, she says, to bid them hasta la vista and take a little break.

"Frankly, by winter, I'm tired of this. I'm ready to play bridge."

Pass the hostas

Hostas have been dubbed “the friendship plants” because they’re easily divided for sharing with friends and neighbors.

Spring is the easiest time to divide the plants, but late summer is best. Think late August — at least 30 days before the first fall frost.

Divide hostas when no shoots are growing from the center of the mature clump. Division of the clump actually improves the plant’s appearance.

Lift the entire hosta clump and wash the soil from the roots to make it easier to see where to cut to divide the clump.

Use a sharp knife to cut the clump.

Make sure you keep newly divided plants watered for the first two weeks, especially in drought conditions.

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