H. 'Ray Of Hope'

In late July/early August 2007 I participated in a 'Secret Trade' on Hallson's Hosta Forum. The idea is for a bunch of people to have their name thrown into a hat and then someone draws a name for each participant whom you are to send at least one Hosta. Most people send anywhere from 3 or 4 to 7 or 8 even. Even with my meagre collection I was able to send a lady in Taber, AB, four varieties she did not have in her garden and I was absolutely overwhelmed by the generosity of the person that sent me my trade. A total of eight varieties, some more common in the trade than others. This variety was one of those uncommon ones, matter of fact I could only find one nursery in the US that listed it! Talk about the fortunate one! Thanks again Barbara!

All was not well however. On almost all the plants I received were brown spots and a few holes here and there, which I put off to hail damage and generally late in the season. In retrospect however, those were not early signs of senescence I was seeing, they were signs of the presence of foliar nematodes, unwelcome guests that hitched a ride on this plant and at least another 3, maybe more, of the batch of 8 I received early August 2007. That whole sordid affair is detailed a bit more on another page and while some fairly drastic steps were taken, the short horizon is mid August 2008 before I'm in position to say with any degree of certainty them worms is goners, the long term outcome is at least a couple of years away.

Looking at the bright side however, at least foliar nematodes can be dealt with, hard it may be though on the plant. If I'd had an HVX issue the plants would have been tossed.

The crown I received had 2 shoots on it last year -you can see that quite easily in the picture above- and as part of the bleaching process I divided it in two. This is one of those two and as you can see it is now sporting 4 swelling apical buds! And it seems to me I saw 3 buds on the other one, so, at least they're showing vigour. Let's hope they can keep it up throughout the year...

April 12th and they both show good growth, one in terms of size, the other in the number of shoots it is showing.

By May 4th this one's really starting to show quite nicely. I'm not sure it'll get as big as it was last year, but in an effort to make it as easy as possible on all the 'bleach babies' I have now put them all in trays with rainwater, so they'll have an almost constant supply of water for their roots.

Though not near as big as when I received it last year, it's putting on a good showing. And although you cannot really see it in this picture, it's also putting up 2 scapes, a sure sign it's quite happy.

I think you will agree this is quite a striking flower, almost like a Nerine or Spider Lily in its appearance. Apparently this variety is not fertile, which is really too bad. It's good though to see both divisions put up a scape and bloom this year. And it also good to see by early August '08 that neither of them are showing any signs of the continued presence of foliar nematodes. Let's hope we can keep it that way.

One of the 2 plants was just begging to be divided again in early 2009 when it was obvious it was getting too big for its 1 gallon pot. I know, I could have simply transplanted it into a larger container, but what can I say, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it. One of these divisions is starting to settle down to pretty much an edge variegated plant, it'll be interesting to see if it stays that way next year.

BTW, the edge variegated version of 'Ray of Hope' is called 'Roller Coaster Ride'. There would appear to be no medio-variegated form at the moment.

This is a vigorous grower for me, remember, it was only 2 shoots when I received it a couple of years ago and now I'm up to 3 plants with multiple shoots. After making a division for a trade earlier in June, this is the family I have left here. I'm looking forward to seeing them bloom again this year, but it's a late flowering variety, last year it was August before I saw flowers on it. I have yet to see scapes developing as of early July '09, so it will likely be even later this year.

By mid-May 2011 all we had left was this 2-gallon pot, but it had a sizeable division in it. On into the season it made quite the showing and while it hasn't as yet, it will be divided later in the season, in order to have some for sale again next spring. It sold quite well this year and it'd be a shame not to have any for 2012.

We're now into year 5 with this variety and you may recall from the first few paragraphs there were initial concerns over suspected foliar nematodes. I'm happy to report there has been no evidence of the infestation recurring. Because of the extremely wet spring there was an issue with a bit of botrytis -a necrotrophic fungus- that lead to the plant looking somewhat unsightly for a while, as were several other cultivars with similar growth habits, such as 'Sea Octopus' and 'Wolverine'.

This cultivar supposedly is not fertile. I could find no reference however if it was completely infertile, or just pod or pollen infertile. So, I had already tried to get it to set pods last year with pollen from anything that was in flower at the same time, without success. This year, 2011, I thought I'd try using its pollen, and early indications are that effort would appear to be successful with H. sieboldii 'Alba'. A nice sized pod is growing and time will tell if we have viable seed, but at least we're off to a good start. In addition I tried some pollen on 'Hacksaw' and that too would appear to have taken, again, a nice fat pod developing. I'm particularly excited about the prospect of the latter cross, both varieties are wavy-leaved and with any luck the streaking of ROH will be passed on to some of the seedlings and perhaps even translate into variegation. Stay tuned!.

Well, I'm very happy to say a good many of those attempted crosses have resulted in seedlings. Here is a small sampling of a batch that resulted from the 'Hacksaw' cross, a nice assortment of yellows and greens, shown here in early June 2012.

One of those seedlings has developed into a very nice glossy-leaved youngster with a shape rather like the pod parent, 'Hacksaw'. The label you see off to the right with Stingray on it is just for a temporary garden name, there already is a Hosta cultivar by that name. If this ends up amounting to something worthwhile I'll have to come up with something else.

Hallelujah, look at what we have here in mid-August 2012, an OP pod! Couldn't believe my eyes when I first saw it. Next question is: are there viable seeds?.....Stay tuned.....

Well, the pod didn't produce any viable seeds, BUT, the seedling you see above has now been named: meet Hosta 'Mawashibiki'. This remains one of my most prized hostas, I love it for its form, the total unpredictability of its streaking, its growth rate, the flowers, it's right up there for me!