eric smith made some great crosses with the tardianas

halcyon was one of the best

a characteristic from it that i use in breeding is that it looks good all season.

right up until frost and it keeps maturing the seed in the pod in cold weather.

thus i've used a little known sport called cirrus clouds(streaked) / june's gold (solid) to use that character to my advantage.

streaked red pets

gold with light blushing

hosta_maker, I had read in the Plants Galore info, that Halcyon seemed to be”the Queen” of the tardianas, but it did not really tell about other tardianas, so I am thinking they are all related to Halcyon. Is this correct? Also I love the photos you shared and how you are creating hostas. That second picture of the hosta blushing is beautiful. I saw a blushing hosta for sale, can’t remember the name, but I wonder if that is of your making?

Funny, when I was talking to my husband about all this, (he rolls his eyes.... there she goes.....never talks about anything but hostas) but he said, “well are there any red or purple hostas?”, thinking he was making a good joke......I had to say as a matter of fact people are creating blushing hostas, hosta with red legs and of course even I have Blueberry Muffins with purple legs.

Ha, ha ken.....for once no question...... just sharing......holy smokes is that different or what? The AHS president’s info on flowers must have been quite impressive.

All the stuff about Elegans...... I have often wondered if the hosta I have really is, though forum members thought so..... some of the flowers touch the under side of the leave and some grow 5-6 inches up. But boy they are sure full of pods.....just dripping off of them.

So as your president said back then about flower form, I have merely made this observation with my own. That’s good.....thanks for the comment about insight!

Ken to me you are a wealth of information and always appreciate anything you share. I have learned so much from you and others on the forum......we are an amazing group of people! I have read a bit about Smith and Benedict and I have Zilis’ encyclopedia (which I can barely lift....... are there other books that you would recommend reading to learn more about the development of hostas? Nothing too scientific...... :-)

There is one thing I did not understand “I wonder if Zilis covered this in his tome” What is “tome?”

I find it fascinating to see how plants are related and consider their plant heritage. It's much more obvious in my daylilies where every now and then you can get a cross that will yield surprising results but when you look back at the prior crosses you can see where in the plant's history a dominant gene can from and how it still shows up generations later.

tome is a large book.. often definitive on the subject .. and schmid's was.. by definition ...

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffcm&q=tome&ia=web

if you read on one the smith line.. look for the plants listed as 1x1 .. 1x2...1x3 .,..those were the first generation.. of which i think ... halcyon is one of them ... btw.. my fave was always camelot ... which isnt a bird.. so maybe it wasnt one of these ...from the library i see it was s x 27 ...

heres the story from the solberg site ....: https://www.hostahosta.com/Longiana.html

looks like he went a different direction with a late blooming sieboldiana .. which was the old name for elegans .. sorta ... when they thought it was a true from seed species .... which is one way to define a plant as species ...

ken

when people find one they love like halcyon it gets mass produced over and over in labs And fields.

And so it goes. Then things start to mutate and sport at the microscopic level. It’s a numbers game and some plants do it better than others.

but it usually starts with a great cross that takes on a life of its own.

back in the smiths Day there was a limit to what you can get your hands on For breeding.

i am sure his dilemma was breaking elegans dominance. Tardiflora was up to the challenge and he got the best of both in halcyon. A bit of science and some artistic vision and persistence gave us one to enjoy long after Smith is gone.

look up his plants on the AHS hosta registry site. Pretty interesting.

as far as more info beyond the books. AHS hosta journals have a ton of info.

they sometimes offer all the journals in digital form in the yearly auction. And some are available online to members. Most members are older so take advantage of their knowledge before their gone.

Thanks again to all of you..... you have shared a wealth of information. Got my homework cut out for me know! :-)

debra