Uploaded February 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Laura, the owner of Riverow Books, a special, antiquarian book store in Owego, New York (highly recommend visiting at: riverow.com/) tipped us off to her uncle, Bob Smith, who took a liking to Hostas over 40 years ago and became quite the connoisseur of the popular shade tolerant species. In fact, since planting his first Hosta, Bob has moved up to over 540 different named varieties and species, which we'll cover here. Though Bob is right outside the Finger Lakes area, we made an exception, especially because we were road-tripping back to the Finger Lakes—and couldn't pass up the opportunity to see another fabulous garden.
After seeing Bob's under-the-deck Hosta plantings, we knew that we'd likely follow his lead under our community house deck at Flock Finger Lakes.
Laura, the owner of Riverow Books, a special, antiquarian book store in Owego, New York (highly recommend visiting at: riverow.com/) tipped us off to her uncle, Bob Smith, who took a liking to Hostas over 40 years ago and became quite the connoisseur of the popular shade tolerant species. In fact, since planting his first Hosta, Bob has moved up to over 540 different named varieties and species, which we'll cover here. Though Bob is right outside the Finger Lakes area, we made an exception, especially because we were road-tripping back to the Finger Lakes—and couldn't pass up the opportunity to see another fabulous garden.
After seeing Bob's under-the-deck Hosta plantings, we knew that we'd likely follow his lead under our community house deck at Flock Finger Lakes.
