H. 'Red October'

No self-respecting Hostaholic can resist a sale, like the one I saw the July 4th/09 weekend at our neighbourhood 'boutique nursery'. All their seasonal stock was on sale and I had to show great restraint. This 'Red October' however did come home with me, as did only one other Hosta, 'Lakeside Down Sized'. As you can tell, this pot was well-packed and will end up getting divided.

Look at this MASSIVE root mass, when I said the pot was filled I had an inkling of what to expect, but not this! There were so many knotted roots that I had a hard time washing away sufficient potting media to get a better look at where to make the cuts in the crown.

Eventually, after what seemed took like 15 minutes or more, there was sufficient exposure of the root mass structure to allow me to make a few cuts with my trusty old carving knife. First I more or less cut the crown in half and then took one of those two and cut it in half again.

So, I ended up with 3 multi-shoot plants, 2 in #1 pots and 1 in a 2 gallon one. They'll probably look a little floppy for the rest of the year, but that doesn't bother me. You might say I ended up with 3 for the price of one, AND, it was on sale to boot!

They all came back quite nicely in 2011. While it is not a spectacular variety, it does have a nice arching habit which lends it a certain elegance, as you see here in this May 15th shot.

Like most 'red-legged' Hostas, 'Red October' is a late bloomer. The scapes have a nice, dark colour and even though it appeared to set pods fairly readily -you can see one forming at about the 5 o'clock position behind the flower- by season's end there weren't many left, like only one, and it's quite skinny, so I have my doubts it contains viable seed. Attempts were made to use pollen for hand pollination of other varieties in flower at the same time -there was a second flush on H. sieboldii var. 'Alba' for example- but none of those appear to have taken. Better luck next year.