Hosta seedlings

In 2010 I took a number of OP 'Sea Octopus' pods and liberally sprinkled them over a few containers with a soilless mix. As you see, they came up thick as thieves. Many of them were non-descript green seedlings, but there were enough that had potential to be something a little different that they were worth saving and transplanting rather then assigning them to the compost bin.

A total of 10 were selected, 6 greens, 3 yellows and a blue.

The seedlings from 2010 you see to the left was the typical crapshoot you expect with open-pollinated seeds: who's your Daddy? The vast majority were culled at the 4-6 leaf stage and, as said, only ten were grown on into 2011. Among that lot were 3 seedlings that showed to be lutescent, with this one here below to be the most exciting one. It's the biggest of the three, actually flowered this year, and shows early signs of the undulating leaf edges you see so clearly on the parent plant.

The flower is quite a bit lighter in colour than the pod parent.

Since there weren't any other hostas in bloom around the parent plant when it bloomed, I'm making the leap that this quite possibly is selfed. None of the three lutescent seedlings have the reddsih petioles of the parent or the all-green siblings and it'll be very interesting to see how well the wavy edge holds into 2012.

I have already assigned a tentative name to this cultivar, meet Hosta 'Yellow Sea'.

By early October it shows a marvellous contrast between the veins and the tissue. It could well be that this proves to be one that shows really special for a few weeks late in the season. It's interesting to note that both the parent and the seedlings seem to have a long season in our garden. They still show quite nicely by mid October when for instance members of the Fortunei family are well on their way into senescence. And they are among the earlier ones to rise.