Splain this one to me, Lucy?

bkay2000

9 years ago

I was so disappointed when Fragrant Dream came up this year (new last year). It was very plain. Last year, it had beautiful leaves. This is what the whole plant looked like in the spring.
{{gwi:1082556}}

On second flush, it has beautiful leaves
{{gwi:1082557}}

So Sweet does the same thing. I love the plant with the average leaves. It has a great overall shape, looks good pretty much all year, comes early, stays late, makes lots of fragrant flowers, etc. However, it's being my favorite hosta has never really included beautiful leaves. This is third flush.

What's the deal? Why is the second and third flush so different? The Fragrant Dream's leaves all looked like that last year. It's leaves looked like So Sweet this spring, which is not bad, just plainer. If every leaf on So Sweet looked that good, you couldn't keep them in stock.

Inquiring minds want to know.

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Comments (8)

hostas_for_barb
9 years ago
Wow bk that second flush is just beautiful - would take first place at the county fair with that one - (or the Hort society flower show.) I will be interested in hearing what the experts have to say about this one.
ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
9 years ago
how cold was it when they came out in spring.. any frost event.. or near frost event???

i realize you are in TX ... but cold is cold ..

its hard to recall such in mid august ... unless you kept a journal ...

ken
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Eleven
9 years ago
Fragrant Dream is one of my absolute favorite hostas. Did you maybe have a hot spring? I think the color change might be dependent on temperature.

Emerging in May:

Early June:

Mid June:

Early July:
bkay2000
Original Author
9 years ago
We had come really cold nights after they started to pip. We had one morning in March that was 16 degrees. All the fragrants (and a few others) had pips by then. I put them in the garden shed. They still suffered. Lots of stuff came up wrinkled and others had those tell tale dots or burns. Birchwood Parky's Gold was burned pretty significantly, but it didn't show up until about a month later.

I remember without having written it down. It was very unusual for us to get that cold at all and unheard of to happen that late. I had lots of damage.

bk
santamiller
9 years ago
Beautiful coloration, bk!
bkay2000
Original Author
9 years ago
After a couple of glasses of red wine last night, it dawned on me that maybe they put out multicolored leaves at bloom time to attract more pollinators.

What do you think?

bk
ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
9 years ago
man o live.. what kind of wine was that... lol ..

you were only talking color???

i saw the strap like heavy foliage as the cold damage ... the leaf is off shape ...

and if damaged in form.. why not impact color???

ken
bkay2000
Original Author
9 years ago
It was just a nice Zinfandel.

Yes, I'm talking color.

You have a point, Ken.

We can speculate that Fragrant Dream was damaged (no question, it was) and that caused the first flush to be damaged in color and shape. However, it doesn't explain the really nice leaves that So Sweet puts out on second and third flushes.

bk