First success at Hosta Seed Germination

[Angel3K]

This effort is a personal one, so probably does not belong to the Hybridizing forum.

While my attempt to germinate hosta seeds last summer was a failure, I manage to germinate one batch of seeds this fall 2011. Stroke of luck or maybe because it is a very fresh seed given to me by my neighbor.

It is slow growing, but I am just probably proud, that finally I have germinated these seeds indoors.
The few leaves never shown streaks, its all green but I can distinguish which ones will be lance shape leaves, or the heart shape - wide siebodiana leaf look alike. The pod was from a streaked plant, if only it has a name, my neighbor called her hosta the plain ones and the stripe ones. I know the blue umbrellas was just there, and so as the sieboldiana elegans.

Does anyone know of a very common hosta - the variegated ones that bear seeds?
This might be a rough guide to what's the name of that hosta?
I saw Patriot and Wide Brim around, but they did not bear seeds at all.

[Chris_W]

That is so fun to see. Thanks for sharing

I'm not sure off hand which common variegated plants set a lot of seed, but if it is normal variegation then you'll most likely have solid colored seeds. Still very fun to watch them grow though

I was cleaning my office and came across a cache of seeds from various plants that I collected over the past few years. I know the ones from this summer will be fine, but I'm tempted to try starting some of the others too. The ones that I really need to start are my own crosses. One that I'm excited about is an F2 seedlings of one of my really old hybrids that had a ton of red in the stems that I crossed with Elatior. I know the cross took because it had a larger than normal seed pod so it has to have those Elatior genes in there Now I just have to grow them

[Angel3K]

Hi Chris,

Thanks for inspiring me. My goal is really to re-create the older hosta genetic pool, as I was looking at creating a Hosta Pioneer Garden too. It may just be full of Plain Jane hosta, but I salute these old ones, as they are usually easy going.
To bring back the older genetic pool means we will have hosta that will grow in cracks and crevices. I find that exciting.

You should definitely start your seed. I will be excited to see your crosses and what comes out of it, especially older red petioled Hosta. I happen to obtain Red October and Chariots of Fire last year. They both flower, but no seeds.

Nigrenses was the label i found at Artistic, but are right that is now a hybrid, thus Eliator.

I wish I can smuggle hosta from your store to Canada. LOL. I look at the pytosanitary certificate, was it like $30 per shipment?

Oh, if you happen to have excess of seeds, would you consider sending some to my end. I think I might want to germinate something again, since I manage to get one germination out of many failed try outs.

Angie

[isadora]

I've got hosta babies too, open pollinated seeds that I collected over the summer. Some of mine are definitely yellow (probably from Sun Power) but most are just green, so far. They are still coming up. Might be some with a hint of blue but it's really too early to tell. They are getting their second set of leaves so tomorrow they go into plug trays to grow on. It's going to be fun to see what they grow up to be!

Sandy

[kaylyred]

Congratulations on your hosta babies! Like Chris said, they are fun to watch. I love starting hosta seeds. I have a few just starting to come up that are 'Ice Age Trail' X ? The seedlings are still too tiny to see if there's any streaking yet. Last year, Chris sent me some seed out of mixed streaked hostas and I did get a couple of nice baby streakers, which I planted out in early September. I hope they survived our weird, almost snowless winter, because it'll be interesting to see what they look like this year.

[redcrx]

Does anyone know of a very common hosta - the variegated ones that bear seeds?

I have Frances Williams that's always putting out seeds and around "her" are hundreds of seedling volunteers.