H. sieboldii 'Alba'

On the way home on Friday night July 18th 2008, I stopped by a fellow gardener who was game for trading some Hostas. Another 4 varieties were added is the long -'Sagae'- and short -gracillima- of it. This here is the other specie we added.

This is what Bob Axmear has written on the species in the listing at the Hosta Library:

The wild species has been named sieboldii f. spathulata (Miquel) in The Genus Hosta, (Schmid 1991) and this form is representative of the wild populations. It is perhaps the most important species in modern hybridizing.

From what we got in the trade we ended up with 3 divisions. All seem to be growing quite nicely by the end of September and I look forward to seeing them flower in 2009.

One of the 3 divisions was lost over winter 08/09, but the remaining 2 are doing just fine, good growth and I'm keeping my fingers crossed I'll see them in bloom this year.

And flower it did indeed, but not the expected shade of purple, which means that what I have here is H. sieboldii 'Alba', confirmed by the original grower .

On the 6th of April 2011 I decided that I was seeing sufficient new shoots nosing up in the pot this one was in to warrant unpotting it and take some divisions. Taking divisions was an easy task, as you can see. The plant has a rhizomatous growth habit and it was simply a matter of taking individual shoots with roots and breaking them off, no knives involved. Now I have some extra plants for trade or sale.

The biggest division flowered twice in 2011. The current year growth flowered in September, and as you see here, the first flowers had already set pods, including one hand pollinated with 'Ray of Hope' pollen, which has me really quite excited. It's the top pod, with the green gardener's tape. Can't wait to see what sort of seedlings we'll get out of this.

It would appear as if I've lost all of the divisions I had to crown rot, but, I'm hopefull the OP seed I collected from it in 2912 will germinate this year and allow me to continue with this species.