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.
