Category: Hosta Seedlings

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Flower Power

Blog 4: Flower Power

Hi again. This has been a crazy year here at Green Hill Farm shipping hostas. That is not a bad thing. Believe it or not Erin and I slipped in and out of Iowa a week ago. In the Country Garden and Gifts in Independence has an event every summer that features some of the best new hostas on the market and a few words from me. This year I talked, at Josh’s request, about the hybridizing process that produced my red hostas.

Speaking of red hostas, while the emphasis is always on the petioles and leaves, many red hostas have awesome scapes and flowers. I do not blame you if you cut the flowers off your grandma’s hostas as they appear. They are gangly and flop everywhere, but new hostas have amazing scapes and flowers, and if you really must remove them, then bring them inside as a cut flower bouquet. They will last for a week or more.

The Japanese are far ahead of us in creating interesting hosta flowers. ‘Miracle Lemony’ is a light yellow flowered hosta. They also have many doubled flowered hostas and colors that range from brown to red to green and all shades of purple in between. Often it is the patterns of stripes inside of the flower, the runway for bees to land, that is the most highly colored. Take a peek sometime.  

But do you really care? After all, hostas are foliage plants, and in temperate climates some of the best. Maybe flowers are not your passion, but scapes are cool especially as they emerge. Here is a look at a couple of seedlings of mine that I keep just for their colorful bloom scapes. They will probably never be introduced as the leaves are nondescript for hostas are bought for their foliage and not for their flowers, at least not yet.

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Welcome to The Hosta Guru

Blog 1 April 30, 2020

Welcome. Hostas are supposed to be fun! ™ But recently with the cancellation of Hosta College, local hosta club meetings, and now the AHS National Convention things have not been as much fun in Hostadom this spring as they should be. So, I thought we needed a new virtual place to meet while we “shelter in place” and take a break from puttering in our gardens. The Hosta Guru is what Erin, my new co-worker and head of our hosta liner division, and I came up with.

We intend to do a lot of wild and crazy things with this website. First, there will be a blog with my occasional thoughts and opinions about all things hosta. You can sign up to receive email notifications of the latest bit of wisdom that is posted, or you can just bookmark the site and visit when the urge hits you. No pressure, this site is just for fun. The blog posts will be short and sweet, a glimpse into my little corner of Hostadom.

But there will be more, somethings we already have thought of and some we will figure out as we go. There will be special hostas, like those I obtained from Japan and other limited-edition introductions, that will be exhibited and might even be offered exclusively by The Hosta Guru, a little virtual vending. If we can figure out how to produce a two-minute video that is entertaining, we may do that, too. I might even pull the curtain back and let you see some of what it takes to do all the magic that we make with hostas. And that is just the beginning. I hope you have as much fun with this as I intend to.

On to Blog 1. Our blue hostas are magnificent this April. The wax is really flowing. I think it is those cool, bright, windy days that really encourages white wax production. As the hostas are subjected to greater and greater desiccation stress, (wind speed is a squared function in the desiccation equation), they happily make a deep coating of wax that even the deluges from our severe thunderstorms and hail cannot wash off. The cool temperatures probably allow for higher photosynthetic rates and increased wax production, too.

Here is a look at my favorite blue seedling this spring. It is from the ‘Plum Pudding’ line, a F2. I just love to look down into the funnel of purple that the petioles form on these broad, ruffled upright leaves, all softened by the white of a heavy coating of wax. It makes you stop and smile. No, it does not have a name, so don’t ask. It may never see the bottom of a test tube in the TC lab, but in the evening, in the company of an adult beverage or two, it is a joy to behold.

Are you having fun yet?