H. 'Blue Moon'

On the way home on Friday night July 18th 2008, I stopped by a fellow gardener who was game for trading some Hostas. Another 4 varieties were added is the long -'Sagae'- and short -gracillima- of it. In addition there was also a 'Blue Moon' which yielded 2 divisions, these here. Over the last 3 weeks a number of blues have been added, this is the latest one. I'm starting to amass quite the number of blues now.

While neither division flowered this year -not shocked over that- they do seem to have settled in quite nicely by late September and I look forward to see what they will do in 2009.

Both division are growing nicely in May '09 and I must admit I particularly like the substance the leaves have. They're not quite as tall yet as last year, but give them some time. Both show nice, fat shoots, have wonderfully glaucous blue leaves and I'm hoping we'll see offsets developing later this summer, as well as see them in flower.

Here are both plants. I was a little puzzled over the rounded shape of some of the leaves I have seen this year, a bit more than last year, and that lead me to speculate that perhaps the plant was incorrectly identified. With a bit of digging however and verifying some of the all-important details, like vein count, I feel quite assured now that it is as presented. And that's good to know, particularly on a plant one likes as much as I do this one.

I feel quite comfortable now with the identification. For a short while I thought that perhaps this might have been 'Blue Ice', but after corresponding with a potential trader in early 2010 who indicated 'Blue Ice' is a slow grower, I'm reassured this is as labeled.

In 2009 this cultivar produced a fair number of seeds, so I decided to try germinating a few in spring 2010 and see what we might get out them. It's obviously way too early in the game to make a call on any of these seedlings at this stage of growth, but I've managed to germinate about a dozen or so. It'll be the end of the season before there's a hint of what might become of them. Stay tuned.