H. 'Golden Tiara'

Hosta 'Golden Tiara''Golden Tiara' has been a solid performer for us. It stays fairly low, has great growth and will quickly take itself from a few sparsely planted points to clumps forming a carpet. It and the 'Fortunei Hyacinthina' we got from my brother are at the moment probably to two most vigorous growers we have in Hostas, although I have a hunch a few new additions from 2005 will prove to be good growers as well: 'Patriot', 'Gold Standard', 'Guacamole' and 'Platinum Tiara'. All of these have yet to fully establish themselves in our yard and it won't be until later in the '05 season that we'll have some good pictures of these.

Hosta 'Golden Tiara'Here's an excellent example of how much Hostas are influenced by their environment. The plant in the pot on the right does not get ANY direct sun at all, just shade. The plant shown below it, in the planter, sees sun from around 4PM and is very different from the potted one when it comes to their colouration. And it isn't just in the variegation either, look closely at the green on the respective leaves.

The light green variegation it has in full shade, as seen in both this and the first picture, makes one wonder what the name's all about. Once exposed to some direct sun, it's easy to see how it came by its name.

The variety is listed as being lutescent, but more than just one plant has gone almost albescent in it's variegation by the middle of August here in our yard.

By mid-July '05 pretty much all the 'Golden Tiara' that bloomed had seed pods developing and we'll save a few of them to see what grows out of them next year.

These were open pollinated, but for pretty much the entire blooming period the 'Golden Tiara' flowers were the only ones open, so more than likely they're self-pollinated. The later ones flowered in an overlapping period with 'Ground Master', but it hasn't set seed so it's questionable if it could serve as a pollen parent. Most of the other varieties we have flower 3-4 weeks later and for the time being we'll not get too bothered about open pollination amongst the lot. Let's see what sets seed and worry about the rest next year.

With all this talk about seed pods it's about time to show the flower, isn't it?Hosta 'Golden Tiara' flower scape

'Golden Tiara' is one of the very first Hostas to break ground for us in the spring. It's such a sight for sore eyes to start seeing them unfurl again in early April '07...These ones here are in the large box by the North yard gate and are the farthest along so far.

We now have five members of the Tiara family in our collection as of mid summer 2009 and all are fairly early risers. In addition to this one we also have 'Grand Tiara' ,'Emerald Tiara' as well as 'Platinum Tiara' and Amber Tiara, the latest addition. They also bloom fairly early and from these cultivars you can expect to see two flushes of flowers in a typical year.

Here we see the mass of flowers on a small stand of Golden Tiara divisions in early July, the same ones you see just unfurling right above.

'Golden Tiara' has done very well for us over the years. This is one of the stands of it, in the sideyard. The rest of the Tiara family is similarly vigorous, they just haven't got to this stage quite as yet.

Hugo's Database has more information about this cultivar, including a list of sports.

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Pages last updated 28 November 2018