Pineapple Punch has a couple - first year I have seen pods on it.

Wow Whirlwind had some good pollinator friends. I was surprised to get seeds on my 1 year old Fire Island

I think that this may be a Fire Island seedling:

Connie, it's funny how pod production varies from year to year and from variety to variety. For example, 'Fortunei Hyacinthina' has a massive family tree and in my experience does not set pods easily and neither do a great many of the direct sports, such as 'Gold Standard' or 'Francee', A little further down the family tree things change. I have always found 'Minuteman' and 'Revolution' to be excellent pod producers. Even more fascinating, I have a 'Hyacinthina' sport I call 'Twisting the Night Away' that is still somewhat unstable, the most variegated sections have ample pods, the mostly solid or streaked ones have barely any.

There is no doubt that temperature plays a role in all this as well, I forget off hand what the exact cut-off temp is but it seems to me that there is little to no seed set above 90F, which for me in Canada's banana belt isn't an issue, my wife and I consider it sweltering when it gets to 80F/26C. I have great pod set on 'Empress Wu', clausa var normalis, 'Sea Octopus', 'Fragrant Blue', 'Hadspen Blue', 'Revolution', 'Big Daddy', 'Hacksaw' and a few others I cannot recall at the moment.

Reluctant pod setters for me have been 'Ray of Hope', 'Red October' and most of the fragrant cultivars I have, such as 'Guacamole' -although having said that there must be 8-10 pods on it this year-, 'Fragrant Bouquet' and 'Stained Glass'.

When I get some time I'll look for some uptodate pix of this year's pods and post them in this thread.

Pieter

My young Fire Island also has pods :-) A lot of my hosta had pods this year, mostly I cut them, but left Green Acres, June and June Fever to get seedlings.

Fire Island pods look quite dark, those of June an JF look yellow.

I never tried my luck with seedlings before, so what would you advise?

Better to collect the seed or waiting what mother nature is going to do?

Karin,

June is a reliable self-seeder for me...just leaving ma nature do her thing. If I want to help, I wait for the pods to ripen and then sprinkle the black seeds under the parent.

Although June seedlings are different than the parent, I often get very blue seedlings that are similar.

That's a nice colour! My June is in a pot and I think I will put a little seed in the pot and keep some for my friend's greenhouse in early spring. I also discovered some pods on Abba Dabba Do.

Pieter,

I know that you are right about the temperature coming into play. We had such a consistently hot season & I noticed poorer pod production this year.

I don't have a good understanding of what impacts fertility so can't really contribute much to the streaked vs. solid vs. variegated discussion. I can tell you that pod production of sports has been different in my experience.

Interesting to learn that you find Whirlwind to be a good producer too. I wonder if it should be removed from the reluctant list (Don's).

Connie May

Pieter,

Like your Revolution, my Hosta Andrew seedlings often are terminal white too. This year I pulled off the white pods and left the single green one to mature.

Those Sea Octopus pods are gorgeous. They remind me of purple string beans.

Just discovered that I have a small number of pods on Curly Fries. This is definitely a first in my yard.