Have you tried Afterglow?

No, but I have it too. So next trip to the garden, I move the pot. Thanks for the suggestion, Gary. I was just looking at your Glad Rags thread as a possibility too.

I think it needs to be a solid color like a green plant. Maybe Celtic Dancer, ventricose, Bridegroom, or Grand Slam.

Steve

While I have neither of these, how about Royal Flush or Ice Follies?

Steve, of course you are right, and tastefully so.
I realize that my selection was sort of Spike Jones and the City Slickers, with their various plaid zoot suit garments and stripes and polka dots. Okay. Sigh.

Don't have Celtic Dancer, but I do have Celtic Uplands and a LOT of greens of every shade and tone. Neither do I have Grand Slam, no idea what it looks like.

Would you say the Luna Moth has a jade green leaf with a chartreuse wide margin?

I'm looking at nakaiana 'Golden' which is rather small and green gold or chartreuse, and also smaller darker dull green Drummer Boy. I like those two together and had Luna Moth near them. I suppose I should let LM carry the show with the supporting cast each having ONE of her colors.

I'll try that set up next.

Oooooh, this sounds like fun! Gemini Moon and Jilted Lover have the same center color in my garden, but if it were me, I would go with a contrast with the center and echo the center color elsewhere on the second and third hosta. Try grouping it with Touch of Class and June Fever. Oooh-La-La! :)

Okay.....and by grouping TOC with June Fever, you mean add the third one, Luna Moth? It's okay, but I want to get away from blues as much as I can. The blue color is not dependably blue here, and I've already done one trio of Halcyon descendents.

The first one I set up as a trio was accidental. It happened to be Dance With Me, Mango Tango, and Summer Breeze I think was just standing there doing nothing, and suddenly I SAW THE LIGHT. And that is where I began looking at the variegations AND colors together.

Sometimes I can look at three hosta side by side, and it takes me a while to figure out what is same, what is different, because the color pallette is same just switched around somehow, and maybe reversed. The picture I took of that trio unintended, fascinated me.

That is what I was trying to do with Luna Moth. It is a real geometric kind of design. Almost abstract. It will take a medium sized architectural hosta of similar attitude to work with it. Luna Moth is a very unique stand-alone hosta.

Luna Moth is really like no other. That is one of the reasons I have extoled her virtues so much this year. She really is very unique, which is why it's hard to group her.

I see what you're trying to do here, it's just so against my nature, personally (which I guess is why I find it interesting). I love the quirks that make gardeners different. I look for the contrast when I group hostas, with a single thread of similarity amplified (typically). You are looking for multiple common threads, with just one contrast. Our styles are like ying and yang :) Hard for me to think that way, all I want to do is contrast them, it's like it's engrained. I like to contrast because I want them to pop individually, not blend together. The way you do it, they all are working together. These differences in style is what makes things interesting!

I read somewhere that when a herd of zebra are running en masse, they look like one huge creature to the predators like the lions. It is only when one of them strays from the group that the lions single out that individual.

So in a way, what I'm doing is looking for the factor which changes these hosta into a optical illusion. Like maybe one, until you begin to see different patterns. Layers of color and pattern not easily recognized in one glance.

I think you described the differences fairly well. In fact better than that. I could not begin to describe it. Thank you, Funn.

EDIT.....July 14
Since my post is still the last one made, I will edit to include the photo I took this afternoon of Luna Moth with two solid colors similar if not exactly like LM's colors. The dark green is Drummer Boy, about the same leaf shape and size as the more chartreuse gold nakaiana 'Golden' (which I think someone said was like/same as Birchwood Parky's Gold? )

I think it is an okay trio, but not a show stopper.

Any ideas about making it better?

ANOTHER EDIT:
Well, it occurs to me that the nakaiana out performs the darker Drummer Boy. I can see the one LM surrounded by all DB....in which case the center is looking smaller but the dark color is prime. Or I can see the one LM surrounded by nakaiana Goldens which will make it a real sunburst. For my money, I'd do all nakaianas, or perhaps all smaller hosta Lemon Lime. (Which is small and it is fertile--different effect)

To my way of thinking, this works nicely for arranging pots so the container disappears.

This post was edited by moccasinlanding on Mon, Jul 14, 14 at 18:29

You know, it's interesting that your most successful grouping, in your eyes, is the Three Graces, which is more of a contrast than the optical illusion that you describe above. The Dance with Me combo really does look like an optical illusion.

I like the dark greens grouped with Luna. I think it pulls out that middle color. It's hard for anyone else to suggest grouping b/c Luna looks totally different in your garden b/c of the loss of wax in your heat than it does in other gardens. Luna doesn't have that exact middle color here.

Keep working with them, as I know you will. Keep us in the loop as to what you discover works with Luna.

Funn, I agree that Luna is an enigma, plus being a unique hosta. I think testing out plants with Luna Moth is a project for the side-by-side app of Hosta Library. I'll put the link below.

You put Luna Moth in one half the app. Then you test out the other hosta options in the other half. It is hosted at Rested Dog Inn online, Pieter's site, which hosted Don Rawson's Lists for such a long time. Thanks, Pieter

Here is a link that might be useful: HostaLibrary comparison app

Yes, I remember that, that would be a great tool for the job. Does it use the Hosta Library pics? I hope not, because the pics on there don't do her justice.