H. 'Whirlwind'

Friday September 12th 2008 some more Hostas were added to the collection, courtesy of a benevolent secret trader from Ontario, this is one of them. Thanks again Kim! It is now no longer on my most-wanted list. Like quite a few other Hosta cultivars this one changes its appearance quite a bit over the course of the season, more so in deeper shade by the sounds of it. It starts out with a bright center variegation which has a tendency to green up when planted in deep shade, as I suspect mine was to begin with. This is yet another cultivar in the Fortunei Hyacinthina family. As such it should have an excellent growth rate and I look forward to seeing it stay brighter, and bigger, next year.

With the same batch of trades mentioned above I also received a division labelled as 'So Sweet' that wasn't as indicated. At the time it reminded me of 'Whirlwind' but it was so dark in colour that I couldn't be sure. So it went through the winter as a NOID.

Now I am sure though. It's now May 1/09 and there ain't no doubt this is 'Whirlwind. I'll be sure to keep one division in full sun and see how long we can keep that nice bright center variegation with those characteristic green veins. The other will stay in much more shade and will allow me to keep a pictorial record of how light exposure influences this variety.

Could sure tell this year that it is part of the Hyacinthina family, it's a late riser. And it's a vigorous grower.

Here are both examples I have of this cultivar. The one on the left is the NOID from last year and you'll perhaps notice it went from a singles shoot last year to 4 shoots this year, the kind of growth not unfamiliar with members of the Hyacinthina family.

With having 2 plants of this viridescent cultivar on hand I decided to conduct a little experiment in 2009 and document the effect of overall sunlight exposure has on how rapidly it actually greens up. The larger of the 2 is being kept in pretty much full sun, the smaller one was transplanted into the Hosta nursery and while it sees ample light in the open shade, the amount of direct sunlight in that locale is very limited.

As should be obvious, this is the potted one. It sees full sun and on June 15/09 it would appear to be the one that is greening up fastest.

The one in the nursery is much slower at greening up, which somewhat surprised me. In my own mind I had reasoned a possible reason for viridescence is to develop more chlorophyl for continued growth in locales where there was less than required light. It's starting to look as if that argument holds no water at all. Oh well, there goes my scientific career...

It's now late July 2009, and the potted one shows fairly significant greening up. Apparently the rate of viridescence is influenced by not only the light exposure, but also the ambient temperature. This potted one certainly saw higher mid-day temps than the one in the ground and that goes a long way to explain why this one's so much greener.