H. 'Ground Master'

- don't think so -

For a while there it was really quite easy for this uninitiate to mix up 'Ground Master' with 'Albo Marginata', which incidentally is not a valid name for a cultivar. A number of cultivars have seen sports with white edge variegation, some of which indeed do get the 'Albo Marginata' suffix, but typically in tandem with the primary cultivar's name. For example, there is a 'Fortunei Albomarginata'. After all both are variegated white, very similar overall size but it isn't until you start to pay attention to things like the shape and width of the leaf that suddenly that famous light goes on and things become clear as to what sorts of differences there are.

'Albo Marginata' has a more rounded leaf than 'Ground Master', which is narrower and more ovoid shaped. Both have a fairly narrow white variegation margin and both show a minor degree of corrugation. 'Ground Master' breaks ground well before 'Albo Marginata' and starts to put up flower scapes by late May, at least here in our area.

Just on the other side of the above mentioned Peony is a sibling and it sees a fair bit more moisture because it is a lot closer to our in-ground soaker hose, which you can spot popping out the ground to the top left of the picture. Little wonder that with that extra moisture it's a happier plant and by the middle of the first week of June has fair sized flower scapes already, whereas the poor thing at the top hasn't shown a thing and has smaller and fewer leaves than this one, something already in evidence when you compare these 2 shots taken within a couple of days of each other.

If indeed we are looking at the real 'Ground Master' than we should see evidence of a fairly unique trait amongst Hostas: it is supposed to be stoloniferous or rather rhizomatous to put a fine point on it. Guess we'll have to examine it a little closer. But certainly in '06 there were some hints of this and I'll have to try and figure out now what it is we actually have here.

We have a third one, growing just the other side of the fence from where these two are, and it was rather small when it came up in 2006 and just did not seem to have the same vigour it showed the year before. Well, lo and behold, by mid June is put on a growth spurt but it had started to revert. We'll see how it comes up in 2007 of course but if it comes up as an all-green reversion it's outta here!

Well, perhaps not so quick. All the Hostas in the planter this last one is in all were lifted late in the 2006 season and the soil was amended. Without further experimentation I guess I'll never know what was responsible, the lifting or the amending (suspect the latter though), but in '07 there is no sign of the green reversion/sporting we saw the year before.

Having seen now in 2008 what a rhizomatous Hosta growth pattern truely is like with clausa, I'm really starting to have my doubts about the identity of this cultivar. I'm beginning to suspect what I have here is in fact one of the multitude of 'Undulata' forms, I'll have to pay some close attention to it in 2009 to get to the bottom.

Indeed, one thing's very clear now: this is NOT 'Ground Master'. It is yet another 'Undulata'. Bugger!

For more information about this variety visit Hugo's Database.