So many new hostas on the market...

[ThisIsMelissa]

The only bad thing I can see about registering a hosta not ment to go on the market, is using a name some one else would have liked to use.... but who else would like to cal a hosta h. Derriere

Perhaps the same yahoo that called one "Outhouse Delight"

[isadora]

I'm not what you might call a "serious" hosta grower.....I don't hybridize my own plants, grow babies from seed (yet!), have to have every new one on the market before everybody else for bragging rights.......go on endlessly about vein count, leaf size, etc. I just plant and grow them because I like them. I don't have an unlimited plant budget, and even if I did, it wouldn't all go for hostas, I like lots of other plants, too.

I kind of like seeing small plants grow, and change, and mature, like children, I enjoy all the stages. And I like different ones, I don't want a garden of plants with such subtle differences that I have to count the veins to differentiate them. When I look at my hosta gardens, I want to see a tapestry of leaves and flowers, all colors and shades. I want little wild things that fit with my woodland garden and act like ground covers. I want big, lush jungle-y things that look prehistoric and give me a "Wow" feeling.

While I love to look at all the new plants, and spend hours on Hosta Library every winter checking them all out, visiting all the best on=line catalogs, I make my selections carefully and they almost always are cultivars that I've seen talked about on Garden Web and this forum, that have been raved about with enthusiasm, then I know they have been tried and proven.

So I seldom order anything really new, not just in hostas but in other plants too, eg. echinaceas, hellebores, et al. For one thing, I want to wait until the price comes down and it gets affordable, and for another, if it's going to be a bust after a few years, I want to know that. I remember just having to have "Great Expectations" when it was new on the market. Still have expectations of that one, maybe in another year or two it will impress me. "Aphrodite"? Gah. I've learned.

So I wait, at least for two or three years to see how the newer ones are going to develop before I give into hosta lust. There are lots of great plants out there I still don't have that are affordable, proven, and gorgeous that I can add to my garden before I add the latest, hottest streakers, reds, etc.

[isadora]

Yada yada. I still sucker for a new pretty face once in a while. I have no real will power, lol!

[jgh]

I just did it again... wrote an extended piece, walking away from the computer for some hours in between, correcting and adding... a nice, educational piece --- and then somehow I hit a button and lost the whole thing!

OK - here is the short version.

Pistachio Cream is a sport of Vanilla Cream. Heart and Soul is a sport of Vanilla Cream. Derriere is a sport of Heart and Soul. The relationship is two different generations... sport and sport-sport. Though they have a common ancestor, it would take a DNA test to prove that the "aunt" and "niece" (in human terms) are actually the same plant. Granted the original source DNA is the same, there has still been an additional generation in producing Derriere.

There are no registered sports of Heart and Soul so far. If one got a yellow sport from Heart and Soul, many would call it a reversion and feel justified calling it Vanilla Cream and there would certainly be considerable doubt in registering it with its own name. But this is a green sport from a variegated plant that sported from a solid yellow plant. I don't think we can assume that that is the same plant as a green sport from the yellow plant.

I think I'm still on safe ground here.

[sugar]

Yes there are probably too much Hosta registred every year, but we all know the market will take care of the poor ones (they will disappear).
But I think it wasn't any different 10 or 20 years ago. How many puckered yellow plants or rather similar looking Elegans seedlings have been registred in the past?
And I honestly believe there have been some really remarkably good and unique plants over the last years, much more then the 20 quoted earlier on in this thread... Some of them have a unique look, others are comparable to other cultivars but are improved (I really like a lot of the tetraploïd introductions of the last years, because it are usually superior plants)

[Esox]

I've said on hosta boards several times before that I'm a hosta lover, not a hosta collector. I don't know how many different varieties I have and don't care. I'm amazed at how many people know precisely how many different varieties they have. Many hosta enthusiasts disdain duplicates. How can you only have one montana Aureomarginata, Paradigm, or Sun Power? If you have 400 different varieties, you have a lot of ordinary hostas and there's no way the 401st variety will be better than one more Journey's End.

If it's not a great hosta, don't sell it.

[Aud]

I buy hostas for their look, not their name. If a hosta looks very similar to one (or ones) I already own, I don't buy it.

Ditto....

When I started buying hostas I did not have a lot of land a single lot suburban size garden area. I have 4 acres of land now and I still only want a good garden hosta. I do not have or want to have every hosta just because it is new or has a name.

When the virus thing started because I know Hallson cares and send good healthy plants I only order what is offered here, I think you are doing what I like as a merchant selling Hostas.

[sugar]

Names are not important, I only buy plants I like, problem is I like a lot of them...If I wouldn't have such a good memory, I would have purchased several plants a second time