H. 'Summer Music'

The first picture of this new in 2008 variety for us. Yes, it came from my favourite discount store: Costco and like most bagged perennial roots you buy this time of year, they had already started to put up good sized shoots, some a bit more bent than others, they get that way when they're fairly tight into the seams of the bag. That first year planted/potted they can look a bit contorted because of that, but they'll straighten out just fine the next year.

Almost 10 days later and the leaves are starting to unfurl much more. It's good to see at this stage of growth there doesn't appear to be any signs of HVX, something I always have concerns about with bagged bare root Hostas. This looks as if it'll be a nice addition to the assortment.

By mid-April it's growing quite nicely even though all of them were subjected to frost a few nights not long after being planted. Most of them came through it just fine, like this one, but there's one where the shoot is all mush and it'll be another 2 or 3 weeks before I would expect to see any signs of new growth on that one.

It became clear to me by mid-May that we have yet another example of a mislabelled Hosta dry root. The initial excitement has been tempered in the knowledge that for the 2nd year in a row we have ended up with 'Undulata' rather than what we bargained for. A bit of a disappointment, but what can you do?

For 2009 I have given this one another go. They were available again as bagged bare root Hostas at Costco so why not give them another try and see if this time around they are as labelled. Stay tuned! Early indicators are promising though....

Not so fast there, big boy. Why would you think the Costco Hosta grab bag actually contains what's on the label? Certainly wasn't again this year. I got more Undulatas... I give up.