Very cool! What are the crosses, if you don't mind me asking.

Don B.

Faye,

You are going to love the seedlings. Dan has created some great plants and the genes in his garden are outstanding.

Steve

Don the pkgs are labelled

#1 pkg. Arc de Treophe(rippled) x Queen of the Seaea x Troubled Water x Olga Petyszn

#2 pkg Ice Age Trail x Komoda Dragon x O P (#3)

#3 pkg Ice Age Trail x Komoda Dragon x OP ( Best green streaked)

#4 Dorothy Benedict x Agequa Drinking Gourd

I am not sure what the difference in the two pkgs (#2 and #3) but I take it the streaks are more prominent ??

Steve , I feel very honored and privileged to have recieved them too
Faye

Thanks Faye. Wow, those are some very intriguing crosses. Best of luck with, I'm sure you'll do just fine with them.

Don B.

Faye, The streaked ones (Ice Age Trail and Dorothy Benedict) will take longer to grow. When you start sowing them in 2 weeks, you will have seedlings with several leaves for Christmas!
Look for Dan's creations at the hosta seed growers forum, he has wonderful ones. He sent several packs of seed to me too, can't wait to see them grow this winter. Bernd

Was it a friendly exchange or did you order from him? I was wondering where he was located on the web.

reading lesson ....

======
I am not sure what the difference in the two pkgs (#2 and #3) but I take it the streaks are more prominent ??

#2 pkg Ice Age Trail x Komoda Dragon x O P (#3)

#3 pkg Ice Age Trail x Komoda Dragon x OP ( Best green streaked)

===>>> dan made a cross a few years back ...he put KD, as daddy on IAT mom .... and got a bunch of plants.. at least 3.. because #2 ... is par-ened as #3]....

so the top one is seeds from plant #3 .. of his original cross ... OP .. meaning he lets the bees do the work.. OPEN POLLINATED ...

the second... lost dan's original number.. but came to be called his best green streaked.. from the original cross ... but again ... he did no further breeding on the cross.. and left it to the bees.. OP .. open pollinated .... or if he did.. he kept those pods ... by using jewelers tags to mark specific single pods ...

OP is heat dependent .... if it gets too hot.. the bees get lazy.. or the flower goes sterile.. before the bees get there ... in other words the important parts dry up or lose their magic ... before an exhausted bee gets there ...

make any sense ???

ken

ps: if you were to go to the library.. and compare pix of the original cross.. you could probably figure out dans breeding goal ... which i am going to guess .... is a 'really freakin big' IAT ... lol ... so one might say.. he is breeding for size ... so if you had the gumption ... you could make your own crosses in the future.. by repeating KD onto your babes .... to increase the gene pool for RFB ... [though it doesnt help he let it go OP .. as we dont know how the OP diluted the gene pool ]..... a sub goal of his.. might be that he is changing mature leaf shape too .. as i THINK IAT is rounder.. than KD .... OR!!!!! .. he was just winging it.. lol ...

Sounds like some interesting crosses,Faye. Good luck with them! You might try to plant some of them in a pot in the spring,outdoors. I got good results that way. Phil

Thanks Ken for the information as to how they were established. You are very fortunate to see these in person and I just hope I can do the plants justice they deserve.

Phil, I may have to do like you suggest as far as planting in the spring because my husband wants to go south for three months to get away from the snow season.

Hi Faye, glad you recieved the seeds okay. About a half a dozen people took me up on my offer to send free seed when I offered earlier in the season. I hoped to encourage new people to give it a try by offering some free seed. All of the seed I sent sent was O.P. or open pollenated. Though Olga Petryszyn is someone I greatly admire and respect, her hostas were not in the crosses.
These are the parent hostas:

Ice Age Trail x Komodo Dragon (best green streaked)

Dorothy Benedict x Abiqua Drinking Gourd

Good Luck with the seeds,

Dan

This post was edited by dansgrdn on Sat, Oct 26, 13 at 8:50

Ken straightened me up as far as the OP . Still never got the short cut system down and so many hosta I never even heard of until this forum and people like you that are so full of great ideas and beautiful gardens.

I found your site Dan in the conversation part from 2007 "Before and After, a work in progress". I wasn't sure how to get it bumped to this part but I drooled over it and all the compliments you recieved for over an hour. I never knew you had a waterfall and it is almost a double to the one I just had installed and not totally planted.You have such great ideas for placing your plants and rocks so I just had to put it into the favorites to look over again. I hope I can do your plants justice and I am not sure which is my favorite but I totally love them all. Can hardly wait for planting!

Thanks again for the inspiration
Faye

Ken, my goal with the IAT x KD cross was a variegated Hosta with Komodo Dragon's leaf edge which I like a lot. Here are a couple more third year IAT x Komodo Dragon crosses that I hope improve with age.

Dan

PS anyone interested in seeds, check out the BADITC auction in November on the Hosta Library. It's a very worthy cause and there should be some nice seed to be had.

This post was edited by dansgrdn on Fri, Oct 25, 13 at 8:50

WoW,Dan,those are some terrific crosses!! I wish I had the patience to try crosses as you did,but I have no good subjects. I do have an OP seedling from Korean Snow that looks good,though. Good work! Phil

I love the way those Komodo Dragon x Ice Age Trail crosses are looking. Keep it up and I think you will have some very beautiful plants.

Thanks for the positive feedback, Phil and summersunshine. Here's another IAT x Komodo Dragon seedling from that same year that's growing a bit slower because it has so much white. They'll be fourth years, next Spring and I'm hoping I start to see more of the KD edge.

Hope you end up with some nice seedlings Faye, have fun this Winter.

Dan

This post was edited by dansgrdn on Sat, Oct 26, 13 at 9:09

Dan, these plants are amazing, certainly beat out most plants being offered on sale in nurseries. May I ask, how many seeds did you need to create these plants 4 years ago? Probably only a few seeds per pod, and then there are all the greenies, and only a few good streaking seedlings after culling ...

Are these plants now stable?
Bernd

Bernd, thanks for the nice comments. I don't remember how many seeds I grew to get these. I usually grow between 2000 and 10,000 seeds in any given year. A lot of times one cross will work really well and it is harder to cull, while other crosses may give you only a couple keepers or none at all. I'm guessing I grew between one and two hundred seeds from the IAT x Komodo Dragon cross. As far as stability goes, the ones with the cream border and the white center are probably the closest to stable plants.
Streakers may settle to an edge or medio pattern quickly or it may take years. Even ones that stay streaked for years generally eventually have eyes that start to settle and take some effort to keep them a streaked plant.

Dan

P.S. Here's one more IAT x Komodo Dragon seedling from that same "batch"

This post was edited by dansgrdn on Sat, Oct 26, 13 at 18:43

My goodness Dan, between working, taking your kids to their events( 4 girls isn't it?) keeping you yard work just done and then growing that many plants ... what do you do in your spare time lol
Do your girls like to garden ? If any of my seeds turn out to be half the beauty of yours , I will be begging for more space ot less lawns. I may have to get a couple heat mats or take over my husbands workshop.
I have him building me raised beds for my vegetable garden for next year and if I get tired of that could always use some for tiny bedding nursery too ...hummm???
Faye

Dan, these are really awesome plants you've created. Beautiful. And in my personal opinion, your cross with the larger percentage of white variegation is stunning; Plainly speaking, that variegation is some of the most beautiful I've seen on a white-centered hosta leaf. Just look at that. I can't even imagine what it'll look like when it matures.

Keep up the great work!!

Don B.

Dan, as Faye writes, you must have a lot to do, and have a lot of success! Your hosta hobby is a lot bigger than mine, I only grew around 250 seeds and found 40 or so seedlings of interest, and 30 of so I planted then out. But those made my winter interesting.
To explain to others, those 250 seeds I planted in bleached black plastic packs we bought tomato plants in in spring. I had those in 2 10x20 inch plastic trays under one shop light with 2 fluorescent bulbs. The final 40 seedlings I had in 5 in plastic pots or styrofoam cups on my 22in x 4ft shelf under 2 shop lights. I noticed that seedlings got too hot on a heating mat, so I positioned shop lights low above the surface instead for having a surface temperature of 76 to 80 degrees. Bernd