Pic of the Day--Sum It Up

Talk about hostas, hostas, and more hostas! Companion plant topics should be posted in the Shade Garden forum.

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Hank Zumach
Posts: 3262
Joined: Oct 11, 2001 8:00 pm
Location: Stoddard, WI

Pic of the Day--Sum It Up

Post by Hank Zumach »

Hi All--I have come to the end of the tour of our garden beds. So, starting today I will begin to re-do the Pic of the Day series from the beginning. I plan on following the same general routine that I have used in the past. Each day I will feature a different hosta variety. The sequence of the photos will be as a person might view the plants as they walked around our garden. We have about 315 named varieties plus a number of noteworthy seedlings and sports. Showing those plants plus another tour around the garden beds and maybe a vacation or two will take about a year. I restarted the Pic of the Day on March 19, 2006. My hope is that long time followers of the series will not be too bored (but that is why there is a delete button) and newer hostaholics will find the information useful and informative.

My comments about the variety will usually include the year I acquired the plant, the size (width X height, in inches) of the plant in each of the last several years, the expected mature size based on registration data or other reliable sources , the light conditions, how the plant is affected by slugs and any other comments that seem worthwhile. I will often give my candid opinion of how I rate the overall performance of the plant. In most cases I will post two or three photos taken over several years in order to show how the plant's development has progressed. Most of the photos were taken in late June. The measurements were usually taken in mid July.

I would like to encourage everyone to post their photos of the variety. That will give all of us a better idea of how the plant performs under different conditions.

Our garden is located in western Wisconsin on the Mississippi River. It is a U.S. Department of Agriculture zone 4B. However, for the last 6 to 10 years the winters here have been warmer than that would indicate.

In addition to posting it here at Hallson's, I also post it at the hostapix at Yahoo Groups and send it to a list of individuals. If for some reason you would like to be added to the individual list, send me a personal message.

Neither the photos or comments may be used for commercial purposes without my written permission.

So.....Sum It Up, one the sports of Sum & Substance, was purchased in 2001 and has been growing in a spot that probably gets 4-5 hours of direct sunlight a day. Beginning in 2001, its size was 12x12, 27x17, 32x15, 48x19, 52x29 and in 2006 it was 60x29. That is still a bit short of the mature size of 80x32 that I have been expecting. The plant has not had any pest problems.

Registry - http://www.hostaregistrar.org/detail.ph ... %20It%20Up

MyHostas - http://www.myhostas.be/db/hostas/Sum+It+Up

Hosta Library - http://www.hostalibrary.org/s/sumitup1.html

The first pic is from early July of 2002, the second from late May of 2005 and the third is from late June of 2006.

Hank Zumach
Sum It Up 6-26-06.jpg
Sum It Up 5-27-05c 001.jpg
Sum It Up 6-24-02c 109.jpg
Hank
Better Gnomes & Gardens
zone 4B-5A
Latitude: 43° 48' 51" N
eastwood2007
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Joined: Jan 25, 2007 12:51 pm
Location: kansas, usa zone 5b

Post by eastwood2007 »

Beautiful specimen!
Charla
Latitude 38.57N; Longitude -94.89W (Elev. 886 ft.)
thehostagourmet
Posts: 669
Joined: Mar 10, 2003 10:38 am
USDA Zone: 5b
Location: Western NY, Zone 5

'Sum It Up'

Post by thehostagourmet »

Hank, I don't remember from last year, do you have any of the other margined sports of 'Sum and Substance'? How would you rate this versus the other(s)? This one doesn't have a very wide or prominent margin.

For instance, if a garden had room for only one S&S margined sport, which would you recommend?

George
Hank Zumach
Posts: 3262
Joined: Oct 11, 2001 8:00 pm
Location: Stoddard, WI

Post by Hank Zumach »

George--I have Sum It Up, Titanic and Lady Isobel Barnett. (plus Sum & Substance) If I had to choose, I'd pick either Sum It Up, Titanic or Lady Isobel Barnett. :lol:

OK, so maybe I'm not sure or all that opinionated when it comes to certain hostas. I can say that, so far at least, I wouild rank Sum It Up below the other two sports. And, maybe I'd give the edge to Titanic. Maybe. :D
Hank
Better Gnomes & Gardens
zone 4B-5A
Latitude: 43° 48' 51" N
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Tigger
Posts: 2727
Joined: Oct 14, 2001 8:00 pm
USDA Zone: 6b - 7a
Location: SE Penna Zone 6b (7a?), lat. 39°50'
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Post by Tigger »

Hank,

The new Arbor Day climate zone map does have you bumped a whole level from before. I guess you need to start thinking like a zone 5 gardener! Ready to try a dogwood or azalea?
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greenguy
Posts: 276
Joined: Dec 20, 2004 8:08 pm
Location: Ohio, Zone 5

Post by greenguy »

I have LIB and love it but I don't need any other of the thin margins jmo

I added a sum of all last year or the year before and really love it with the wider margin.

who am I kidding I really like all of the big hostas and S&S sports



tigger thanks for the update.

I am in zone 6 now :beer:

pretty soon i will be able to grow all the nice tropical stuff :lol:
Hank Zumach
Posts: 3262
Joined: Oct 11, 2001 8:00 pm
Location: Stoddard, WI

Post by Hank Zumach »

Tigger--Thanks for the update. I see that they extend zone 5 up to here because of the Mississippi. We have been aware that our growing year is longer than folks who live just a couple of miles away from the river valley. I don't think we are ready for azaleas, etc. yet but we are going to try a Japanese Maple that is supposed to be OK in our climate.
Hank
Better Gnomes & Gardens
zone 4B-5A
Latitude: 43° 48' 51" N
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LucyGoose
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Joined: Nov 14, 2001 8:00 pm
Location: Zone 5, Northwest Indiana

Post by LucyGoose »

Hi Hank!!

I always love the POD!! Might not post on it but always look....

I don't have Sum it Up or any of the sports.....I just have S&S.......It's in a lot of sun.....I keep watching it for HVX, too.....

As always.....Thanks for sharing!!! :D
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jgh
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Joined: Oct 14, 2001 8:00 pm
Location: Plymouth, Minnesota zone 4

Post by jgh »

I think, if they've got the garden space, everybody should have one of the green-with-yellow margin sports of S&S. After all, S&S is a great hosta, and how could you not like a similar plant with similarly large leaves and a margin?

That being said, I think this might be the best example of registration-gone-wild. There are too many similar plants to name, and other than some having wider margins and some having narrower margins, there just isn't that much difference among them. Sum of This, Sum of That, too many sums and not enough differences!

My oldest is Lady Isobel Barnett. After I got her started, I started seeing all the comments about her narrow margin and every plant that came along was better or improved... but as she matured, I find I like LIB just fine and she makes a great statement in the garden.

The other one I've grown for a while is Titanic. It came with a ton of hype about its' wider margin and vigorous growth. I like it - but I think it gets its wider margin at the expense of a lot of instability. I get lots of all-yellow sports and half-and-half leaves.

It seems like every year I added another S&S sport - I think I imagined a bed with a giant S&S hosta family planting. Some day all those giants out there scattered among the gardens will mature and I'll have to buy more property. In the meantime, the two prettiest ones I've planted are in my friend's garden, where we put S&S near the pathway as an anchor and welcome to the garden plant... and then planted LIB near the house surrounded by small hostas and ferns - a focal point just below her living room picture window.

Like I said - if you don't have one, you should get one... but you probably only need one!
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redcrx
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Re: Pic of the Day--Sum It Up

Post by redcrx »

I got Sum It Up from Chris at the beginning of last season.
Here it is when it first came in:
Sum It Up - April 26, 2012  -  with Miss Ruby in a trough to the right
Sum It Up - April 26, 2012 - with Miss Ruby in a trough to the right
Sum It Up - April 26, 2012
Sum It Up - April 26, 2012
Sum It Up - April 26, 2012
Sum It Up - April 26, 2012
And late in the season:
Sum It Up - August 28, 2012
Sum It Up - August 28, 2012
Ed McHugh, Sicklerville NJ
ImageMockingbird feeding juvenile yellow raisons - never leave home without them.
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redcrx
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Re: Pic of the Day--Sum It Up

Post by redcrx »

Sum It Up during the 2013 season

American Icon (left) and Sum It Up (right)
American Icon  &  Sum It Up - May 21, 2013
American Icon & Sum It Up - May 21, 2013
Sum It Up - June 2, 2013
Sum It Up - June 2, 2013
Sum It Up - June 2, 2013
Sum It Up - June 2, 2013
Sum It Up - June 2, 2013
Sum It Up - June 2, 2013
Sum It Up - June 2, 2013
Sum It Up - June 2, 2013
Ed McHugh, Sicklerville NJ
ImageMockingbird feeding juvenile yellow raisons - never leave home without them.
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redcrx
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Re: Pic of the Day--Sum It Up

Post by redcrx »

Sum It Up this season - I wasn't paying attention and went to grab a pot of Lady Isobel Barnett and grabbed this by mistake. I was only looking at the thin margined leaves and not the leaf shown here that says this is not LIB. That leaf may have been siting behind the Frances Williams next to it.
Sum It Up - June 30, 2017
Sum It Up - June 30, 2017
Sum It Up - June 30, 2017
Sum It Up - June 30, 2017
Ed McHugh, Sicklerville NJ
ImageMockingbird feeding juvenile yellow raisons - never leave home without them.
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