H. 'Bright Lights'

In spring 2006 we purchased the usual assortment of bare roots from Costco and when you buy bare roots it's always a crapshoot as to whether or not you actually get what you think you're buying. Well, I thought we'd acquired some additional 'Morning Light' roots but had my doubts about that ever since they broke ground in the spring. To put my doubts to rest I posted a question on the Hallson Hosta Forum and Bill Meyer -thanks again Bill- pointed me in the right direction. Mike Lemke gives a size of 15"x24" for this 'Tokudama Aureonebulosa' sport in his database.

Now, having said all that, it's quite a nice cultivar. It's uncommon to see a yellow variegated one with the glaucous, waxy coating; rather nice actually. It'll be interesting to see what it will look like once we get beyond the single shoot stage. The leaves also have good substance to them. And I also found it to be doing quite well in almost full sun. It is not an overly common Hosta , and I have been able to use twice in 2007 as a trade subject with people who have way more Hostas than I do.

While it may look nice in August, like it does in this shot above, taken on August 16/06, it is rather non-descript looking in April. Guess that's why it didn't do well in last year's, or this year's plant sale. Like so many other variegated Hostas they need time to show their stuff, so to speak.

As you'll find with many other variegated Hostas, the colouration of this variety varies of course with light exposure. This one here is in complete shade, whereas the one above sees around 4-5 hours of direct sun.

I also rather suspect the plant I made the subject of my 'slice-n-dice' experiment is 'Bright Lights' as well. Come spring '07 these will be moved to a #1 pot.

Even though they weren't what I had expected when they first came up in 2006, I must admit I rather do like this variety. It has great substance, is a steady grower and ready bloomer. Because it is a Tokudama derivative I had expected a very slow growth, based on the parent's reputation, but while it's not as vigorous as Gold Standard or Guacamole for example, this year they all showed nice increases in size. Here are a few of them in the middle of June, just nicely starting to colour up.

By the middle of July however you can easily see how much better the variegation stands out now, very much a different looking plant from when it first starts to unfurl in early spring.

It's always been one of the early bloomers, no different for 2009.

For more information on this variety go to Hugo's Database.