H. 'Morning Light'

2004 saw us add to our Hosta assortment and one of those additions is this: 'Morning Light', shown here in bloom in early August 2004, tucked behind one of our 'So Sweet' ones.

It's been slow coming up in 2005, although I must admit to seeing 3 points on it now (early April). Since it is a rather compact variety we'll undoubtedly end up moving it more to the foreground than what it is now. Part of our problem is that low growing foreground plants tend to get lost very quickly behind the dog barriers we have in place.

Well, it did get moved from this location and I moved it to 'the Hosta planter', with all the others that do not have a permanent spot at the moment. They are coming along slowly: another example of how Hosta roots adapt to their environment. It'll take the better part of this year's growing season for them to get over the shock and adapt their roots to a situation where there's more drainage, looser soil and no competition from Cedar roots. We have another root in the side yard, but we'll leave that one alone until the fall.

The same plant a little earlier in the year.

We obtained a few more bare roots of labeled 'Morning Light' in March 2006 and were struck with how when their leaves first unfurl there was very little variegation and when it finally DID show, the center variegation very slowly but surely turned lighter and lighter. Here for example we have one of the 2004 roots finishing unfurling. Matter of fact, it is the same one as you see in the first picture and the strange thing in 2006 is that it never showed the colour of variegation it showed in that first picture.

Well, that sounded like a nice story, but in late August I was getting really puzzled over this particular plant and posted a question on the Hallson Hosta Forum. Bill Meyer suggested that what we have here is in fact 'Bright Lights'. When I got to thinking about this all I recalled that early this spring when one of the 2 remaining 'Morning Light' crowns didn't show any new growth so I took one of the newly acquired bare roots labeled as being the same variety and simply put it into the ground where the label still was from the one that didn't come back up. Mystery solved and how humbling to be go through a public jogging of one's alleged memory. As I like to say though: 'my memory is great, it's the recall that is sometimes not what I'd like it to be'. Oh well, chalk up another one to experience.

This has not been a particularly vigorous variety for us. We're down to just one crown now and it will be interesting to see how it will do in 2007 for us.

The surviving crown of this cultivar was in a bad spot last year and it was time it got relocated once it started to break ground in 2007. When the plant was lifted I noticed an excellent opportunity to divide it and now I have two again. Hopefully the melt-out I experienced with it last year is a thing of the past and with any luck in 2008 we will see better growth on it.

2009 has proven to be the last year for this cultivar, both divisions simply whimped out and are no more. RIP. This cultivar has a reputation for being difficult to grow, which my sentiments echo. It is not likely to be replaced anytime soon.