H. 'Hacksaw'

No self-respecting, penny-pinching, pension-collecting Dutchman can resist a sale. Particularly when it's an end-of-season twofer sale on perennials at one of his favourite local nurseries. This is one of six Hostas that came home that fateful day, October 17th, 2009. Yes, I know, it looks a little worse for wear, but what do you expect this time of year...

Unlike a couple of others I bought at the same time, I managed to resist dividing the plant when I re-potted it.

This apparently is a cultivar with serrated leaves, like 'Teaspoon'. I hope that's something that comes with maturity, at this point there's not a hint of it. Nor do you see much evidence of the undulations of the leaves either, but then again, most of the first flush leaves are gone. We'll see how it does in 2010... keeping my fingers crossed.

By mid-July 2010 you can see the first scape starting to form buds. Undulations are in plenty of evidence, serration not so much. But then again, didn't see any serration to speak of on 'Teaspoon' either this year. Nor on that mystery 'Blue Cadet'.

It's now 13th of March, 2011, and you see here the same plant as you see right above, coming out of senescence. The new growth evident in this shot is encouraging. Must admit I do not recall how early it poked up its head last year, but it sure is a welcome sight this time of year.

About 3 weeks later and look at how full this 5 inch pot is getting in season 2 in our yard. So, divisions were taken and the largest one ended up being planted in a #1 pot. The smaller ones were sold off.

The remaining plant did quite well and ended up producing 3 scapes. Most flowers were left to be open pollinated and set seed fairly readily.

One of the other hostas in bloom at the same time was 'Ray of Hope'. It however has a reputation for not being fertile and I certainly have not seen any pods on it since I've been growing it, but up until this year I had not tried to use it as a pollen parent. I finally did this year, on several cultivars, including the top pod on this one scape on 'Hacksaw' Ask me if I'm excited about the prospect of germinating these seeds and see what sort of offspring we get....

Here it is late May '12 and this is what has germinated! As you can see, a goodly number of yellow seedlings and one of them has me quite excited, it's very skinny leaved and yellow, you cannot see it very well in this shot but it's the one on the far right. Hopefully it will grow on into something special. In addition to these I also have a goodly number of OP seedlings. Now, where to find the space to keep them all over winter....

This is from a different angle, shot June 1st,

From a slightly different angle, the yellow one obscured by the green one at the 10 o'clock position. This shot pretty much shows all the seeds that germinated from that pod and we're 50/50 green and yellow.

I was looking at some pictures I'd taken and had to do a double take on one of 'em. Did I just see some green streaking on a yellow leaf? Sure enough I did, the yellow leaf on the far left, and it wasn't some strange camera thing either, it's there in real life! Cannot wait to see more leaves develop on this handfull of seedlings...

One of the more interesting seedlings out of this batch is this one, with rich green, glossy leaves. You may notice the label with the name 'Stingray' on it, but it has since come to my attention that there's already a cultivar with that name, so, I'll have to come up with something different next year.