Interesting Hosta Story
- Subject: Interesting Hosta Story
- From: J* H*
- Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2001 10:55:22 -0400
Sports,
It seems that just about every hosta has an interesting story connected
with it. Birchwood Parky's Gold and its sport progeny has such a story.
One summer about 8 years ago, I found a green streak in the center of
one leaf of
Birchwod Parky's Gold. In the fall I took a bud cutting of the axillary
bud to capture the bud sport if possible. The next year a new division
appeared and developed perhaps 8 leaves all of which were identical.
All leaves showed a chartreuse border and a dark green center. The
following year there were four divisions, all uniform. It appeared to be
stable. I potted the plant and took it to Alex as a guest plant in his
garden for the Convention garden tour of 1995, I believe. It was seen by
several people who commented favorably on it. Alex named it Parky's
Pride and I registered it by the name I thought I heard Alex
use...Parky's Prize.
Some years later, Mark Zilis found in his lab, a reversed form with a
chartreuse center and a dark green border. He named it Sweet Home
Chicago. I got a small liner from Jim Swartz and planted it next to
Parky's Prize. The two plants are equally beautiful although they are
"tissue transfers" of each other. At about this time, I also found a
sport of Parky's Prize, identical to Mark's in my garden. I planted
this one also next to Parky's Prize and Sweet Home Chicago.. Then just
this spring, another sport occurred in the garden.. Parky's Prize
produced a clump of six streaked divisions. Four appear to be
chartreuse and white and two appear to be a brighter yellow and white in
color. These plants need more time to determine if the yellow color is
truly different from the chartreuse ground color. If so, then there will
someday be a pure yellow color at six oclock on the Birchwood Parky's
Gold Wheel of Sports.
Isn't this fun?
Jim
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