MANSFIELD, Ohio — When Doug Beilstein fed his curiosity about hosta plants around 25 years ago, his appetite only grew. And so did his garden.
Beilstein loves the hosta plant. When he started planting seeds in his backyard garden all those years ago, he became interested in hybridizing the diverse plant. He currently estimates that he plants 60,000 seeds a year — and he discards most of the plants because he’s looking for the most unique.
“If it’s pleasing to my eye, it makes the cut,” said Beilstein.
But sometimes the plants can take up to 10 years to mature and satisfy Beilstein. That’s why he keeps track of the plants with spread sheets and pictures with letters and numbers to help codify each plant.
“Thank God for spread sheets,” said Beilstein with a laugh.
Beilstein was a dentist with his own practice in Mansfield. When he retired around six years ago, he said he expanded his hobby of growing and hybridizing hostas.
He bought more seeds and pots, built more plant beds, designed a website, constructed covered houses for the plants in his backyard — he even built a bridge that connected his backyard with a small plot of land separated by a ravine. Just so he could have space for more hostas.
“I never do anything on a little scale. If I’m going to do this I’m going to do it,” said Beilstein.
His interest all started when he began working for Kingwood Center while in high school in the sixties. When he finished secondary education, he went to The Ohio State University for dentistry. He graduated in 1973 and founded his own practice soon thereafter. He blames his science background on his thorough organization of his hosta plants.
Then, in 1985, he and his brother Steve Beilstein started the Blueberry Patch in Lexington. “It was a wonderful diversion, if you will. I’d be in the office all day and then I’d go out to the farm, the patch,” said Beilstein.
After a couple years of business the brothers chose to sell perennials along with the blueberries. That’s when Beilstein was introduced to Van Wade from Wade & Gatton Nurseries, who Beilstein said has a wealth of knowledge in hostas and horticulture.
After selling the perennials at the Blueberry Patch for a while, Beilstein said there has to be more to this whole thing. So he dug — so to speak.
“And then I did a lot of mail ordering, and this and that, and pretty soon I had over a thousand different kinds. Then I thought, ‘well, there has to be more to it than that.’ So I grew some seeds,” said Beilstein. From then on, he has been learning how to hybridize hostas.
He said there is a lot of trial and error, and he keeps them all in his 1.5 acre garden and raised beds, labeled with numbers.
“They come in all different sizes, shapes, leave shapes — they’ve got puckering on them. You can see the lines, the different degrees of blue or green. Some of them have an edge, or a margin …” said Beilstein as he pointed to different plants in his backyard garden.
Although Beilstein sells his seed varieties through his website, he said it’s not a lucrative business for him.
“It’s a rather fun thing for me to do,” he said.
He and his wife, Mardy, travel to different conferences every year within the American Hosta Society (AHS) to see different hybrids of Hostas and to meet new people. Mardy helps Beilstein in the garden with pulling weeds and naming some of the favored Hostas.
In the “family plot” on the side of their Mansfield home, the Beilsteins have a number of Hostas named after members of their family; some are riddled with inside family jokes. “Naming them is part of the fun,” said Beilstein.
