H."Twistin' The Night Away"

This exciting new sport selection came out of a 4 year old Hyacinthina sport clump and was divided out on June 22nd, 2009. It's a very nerve wrecking waiting game we have to go through now in order to find out how stable this sport proves to be over the next 3 to 4 years, both in terms of variegation and colouration as well as the curious twist the leaves show in this initial stage. The name is only a working name, and it was chosen because it kept going through my head lying in bed the morning I decided to post the first pictures of the results of the division of my clump of Hyacinthina sports. It is not inconceivable that the twisting leaf form only manifests itself when the plant is immature and for that reason alone it'll be at least the 2012 growing season before I can give further thoughts to validating the name and perhaps even register it, but that is very much a clear cut case of putting the cart before the horse right now. Heck, if the twist disappears with maturity I'll have to resort to the use of another Sam Cooke song title, like 'You Send Me' for example, which is actually the other side of the RCA single release on RCA 0566, as well as many of his albums of course over the years.

At the moment this is a single division plant and is rather precious to me right now for some reason... I cannot begin to entertain thoughts about divisions until such time there is a clump of at least 10 or more shoots. Once at that stage, likely in 2011 or 2012, the first priority will be passing the above judgments. When that is done I'll have to decide how to proceed, is this a viable commercial introduction perhaps, who knows? Again, it's way too early in the game for these questions, never mind the answers. It may all prove to be a short-lived flash-in-the-pan by the time the dust settles. We can ruminate and chew the cud all we want in the mean time though.

The variegation starts out green in the earliest unfurling stage but quickly goes to cream and then white. The two-tone green edge is unusual and I hope it continues as it grows on, it does make it all the more interesting. Checking some pictures taken last year, 2008, it would appear there is a tendency towards burn-out of the center by early August when kept in afternoon sun, not unlike another Hyacinthina sport: 'Gold Standard'. For that reason it was kept at the opposite side of the yard this year and there it only saw direct sun until about 1PM or so. Once this and its sibling divisions become established they'll receive morning sun only, some perhaps as little as an hour.

By the middle of September '09 these are the two most promising divisions out of the clump of sports. The one on the left has the most pronounced twist to its leaves and it is the one pictured above, the other's leaves are far less twisted but that division has more shoots on it and will perhaps appear somewhat more bushy and filled-out next year. Both of these are just barely starting to show the first hints of senescence at this point, undoubtedly because they have been kept well hydrated and out of direct sun since the division happened late June.

For 2010 all divisions came back up with the exception of one. And most of them showed a nice degree of twisting, very encouraging. The one in the back in this May 2nd shot is the same one as the one in the #1 pot in the picture above, and it would appear to be nicely stable in terms of variegation, whereas the one in the foreground still has streaking as well as a green leaf.

This particular one shows a nice undulation, not much of a twist, but by the time it stabilizes that will likely change, stay tuned.

A little later, 8th of July 2010 to put a point on it, this particular division is growing nicely, but it still shows a very large variability. Some leaves are misted, some streaked, some medio-variegated and there's even a solid green one. No doubt this one will see further division as time goes on.

Just for fun, what follows is a series of the 4 best divisions, with the original division taken in 2009 on the left and what that division now looks as of 8 May, 2011, starting with the prime division, #1, the one that is responsible for the garden name this sport has been given.

This is division #5. It seems to have stabilized to a large medio variegation.

Division #8 has produced additional offsets, but they are either completely or partially green, so, those will get removed later in the year.

And finally division #9, still just a single shoot, but boy, is it ever nicely twisted.

The others are still not quite as stable, some are streaky, one has only variegation on one side of the leaves, yet another is all-green, and so on. More shots will be taken of these 4 as the season progresses.