Hooray for hostas old and new

Press, 9 October 1987, Page 10

Hooray for hostas old and new

Hostas, those splendid but often underrated foliage plants, begin to come to life again this month, and if frosts stay away their elegant, unfolding foliage will be one of the joys of gardening over the next few weeks. I have special reason for anticipating the event this spring, because I recently planted three elegant new hostas from the Taranaki nursery of Mark Jury, whose father, Felix, is internationally known as a breeder of camellias, magnolias, and cherries. “Serene” and “lolanthe” are two fine magnolias recently raised by Felix Jury; he and Mark have another six new ones scheduled for release next year, and these include “Vulcan," which they describe as a pure red, with no purple in it. “Dream Boat” and “Waterlily” are two of Felix’s more notable camellias. He is also hybridising celmisias — those notoriously difficult native mountain daisies — to create a race of reliable, free-flowering garden plants, and he is making numerous crosses of the many hostas, home-raised and imported, in his big garden at Urenui. “August Moon,” “Blue Boy,” and “Grey Pie Crust” are three elegant new hostas from this year’s Jury catalogue. “August Moon” came to me as a possible substitute for the older Hosta fortune! “Aurea,” a rare and lovely plant whose leaves

are gamboge yellow for several months in spring and early summer. Later they turn green. “Aurea” is a marvellous, plant, one of the garden classics, but is not for every garden; it has two drawbacks (call them defects if you don’t fancy pussyfooting about). One is that it is very slow growing, and thus is expensive to buy — when you can get it. After nine years I have just been able to divide my plant into four small pieces. The other fault is that it burns badly in hot sunshine. You must grow it in some shade, which necessitates a masterful balancing trick; too much shade and it goes green, too little and it fries. I grow Hosta fortune!

“Aurea” where it gets only a little morning sun. "August Moon” is a more buttery yellow and is said to be quite resistant to burning. We shall see. If it’s bold foliage that you want, you could hardly do better than Hosta sieboldiana, a big plant with big, heartshaped leaves. The variety, “Glauca," possibly a horticultural selection, has a bluish tinge to its strongly veined foliage,

and reproduces true to type from seed. But there is room for improvement on the ordinary form, and in recent years several blue-leafed selections have been made and named. “Blue Boy” may be the best yet; light seems to bounce off its leaves, giving a prismatic effect. It’s expensive, but worth the cost. Perhaps not derived directly from H. sieboldiana, but showing some of its influence, is "Grey Pie Crust,” which, as you might infer from the name, looks good enough to eat. The leaves are grey-green, big and bold, with attractively wavy edges, like a well-crimped pie. Among the older hostas are several on which it would be hard even for Felix Jury to impove. “Undulata” is a beauty — one of the most striking of foliage plants. Its heartshaped leaves are green at the edges only. Enclosed in the green is a large central patch of creamy white, bleeding into shades of green at its margins. The markings vary in detail from leaf to leaf but the central creamy white blotch is a consist-

ent feature. This is a very old plant originally imported to Western gardens from Japan, where it has probably been cultivated for hundreds of years. . The leaf has a slightly wavy appearance, which explains the unusual name. Apparently this plant should have been called “Erromena,” but through an error “Undulata” was published first,* and under the international rule of priority it must stand. So there has been a,name swap, and “Erromena” has become the plain green form, cultivated in England but not, as far as I know, in New Zealand. “Albo-picta” is another old Japanese hosta. This has two-tone or three-tone leaves, green on yellowgreen at this stage of the

season, fading to limegreen on green later. Like “Aurea,” this is a form oi Hosta fortune!. Hosta lancifolia tends to be a second-class citizen, perhaps because it is such an obligingly easy plant to grow and such a reliable, robust, and free-flowering thing — but in a rather dull shade of lilac-mauve. Incidentally, I haven’t been mentioning the floral hdbits of the other hostas, because they are either (a) not worth mentioning or (b) not prolific flowerers. Hosta lancifolia certainly flowers prolifically, which is just as well because its foliage, while not without charm as an edging to a shady or semishaded border, lacks the brashness and boldness of some of its cousins. There is a variegated form, with white-edged leaves, the name of which

I have mislaid (I think it’s either “Elaine” or “Martpanne”). You don’t see this very often, mainly, I’mtold, because it is such a slow seller that propagating it is unecdnomic. As I’ve remarked before, there’s no accounting for pubfic taste. "Thomas Hogg," on the other hand, is a very popular hosta, and deservedly so. This fine plaift shows some Hosta fortune! influence, and its leaves are tough, and glossy, and sunproof (but it will grow very handsomely in shade). White markings at the margin extend right down the stalk to its base. The ground cover of the leaves is a rich, medium green, and the surface has a waxy texture. Water runs straight off it. You can grow this hosta even in the drip zone of trees. “Thomas Hogg” is an old plant, and its parentage is unknown, but it appears to contain at least some blood of H. fortune!. (Again!) Numerous fine-foliaged varieties have arisen from this species. One has a yellow band of variable width around its leaves and is known by several names, including “Gold Edge” and “Marginata Aurea.” The correct name, according to a recent Kew handlist, is “Obscura Marginata.” A plant which came to me under the name “Hosta montana ‘Aurea-marginata’ ” may be the same thing; I will have to grow both for a while to be sure. If that last paragraph indicates anything, it is that hostas in the New Zealand nursery trade are thoroughly mixed up and many are sold in garden centres and other retail outlets under erroneous or invented names. In the long run it saves time, money, and disappointment to go to a specialist for plants of this type.

Big plant with big, heartshaped leaves

GARDENER’S W DIARY I i Derrick I Rooney

Hostas are thoroughly mixed up