Hanky Panky?

[poppi]

I found this plant in a group of Striptease and was marked Striptease. After looking at the library I think it's Hanky Panky but the photos on the library vary so much I'm not sure. What do you think?

[Mark Raw]

I would go for HP too depends how it goes on as the seasons change. deffo looks like a reversed Striptease.

[jgh]

Nice looking plant. Since it was marked Striptease, I'd assume it is a sport of Striptease. I would not - ever - label it Hanky Panky. I'm a stickler on naming and I hate the common trend that has developed to just assume that if a plant throws a sport that looks similar to a named sport, we'll just relabel it. I think we are getting an awful lot of variablity in hostas from this trend.

so you look at the history of the family and you realize Striptease has sported and its sports have sported into a vast array of named and unnamed hostas. and Hanky Panky is particularly unstable - the tissue culture produced the first couple of years did not produce a whole bunch of identical hostas... lots of variablity...

I would grow your plant and enjoy it, but my plant tag would read "Sport of 'Striptease'?" - at least until I decided to give it a use name like H. "Sally Rand" or H. "Buck Naked" - (note the double quotation marks indicating private naming, not registered name) or something fun with a family member in it.

[viktoria]

Go to Hosta Library, look up 'Striptease' and then clck on the "MyHostas" lnk. On the right yu will see a list of 'Striptease' sports. You can then look them all up in the Library and compare with your (very attractive) sport.

'Hanky Panky' reverses its colors during the summer so, if yours maintains the coloration, it cannot be a match.

Viktoria

[poppi]

Thanks for the responses. I have looked at the library and database. I even looked at the pictures and HP was the only thing that came close. I will plant it and see how it does. It's much larger than any HP I've seen in the nurseries, so maybe I've got somethings here. Either way, it's lovely.

I'll let you know how it does throughout the summer.

[Chris_W]

It is likely a sport of Striptease that wasn't culled out of the batch. Probably will end up slightly different than Hanky Panky which comes up with a cream margin while this one looks more greenish on the edges and I'm certain this will reverse and look like Striptease later or it would have been taken out of the batch a long time ago.

I've probably seen about 5 of these nearly identical sports in the past few years, and each is a little different so I wouldn't put a label of Hanky Panky on it. One of these that I have reverses in a matter of weeks while Hanky Panky takes the whole summer.

Then I have a few Hanky Panky with different margin colors too, so those are Hanky Panky sports. This whole family of plants is just a crazy sporting bunch, which can be fun

By the way, Hanky Panky gets nearly as big as Striptease so you've just been seeing young ones.

[thy]

Jim, where do the confusion start ???
WIth the LOOK A LIKE IN THE GARDENS or WITH THE LOOK A LOT LIKE, BUT HAVE from the nurseries......

I would go for a look a like HP for my garden label

Confusions... sure... a lot of them and yet we are as hosta growers so vey lucky we have the HL
Pia

[redcrx]

There are numerous Striptease sports that have that color pattern at some point during the season besides Hanky Panky. And I have seen Hanky Panky with about 7 different color leaf patterns at the same time.

Some similar versions - Cabaret, Yellow Polka Dot Bikini, Strip Poker, Juha (but the library photos don't show it), Outer Space.

Juha - 4/20/2012

It is a lucky find - enjoy it.

[hostacrazy]

This is a very beautiful Hosta!! I think it looks more like Hanky Panky. I would love to have one! would look nice with my Yellow Polka Dot Bikini.