True blue ???

[thy]

What is up and down with all the tardianas and other small/ medium blue ones.

They are all sort of blue, but blue is not allways blue and different nurseries say different things and so do the HL.

In my former garden Camelot and Blue Moon ( thanks) were the most true to blue, then came Fragrant Blue, then the blue/ green Halcyon and then the green/ blue Blue Cadet just to mention a few wellknown hostas. But in other gardens Halcyon have been very blue and Camelot a so so. Spring and early summe is it. I know they fade more or less, but it is a question of sun and shade only or are there really any differencies... ?

Please, tell me

[Chris_W]

Hi Pia,

I know that blue color can vary quite a bit for each plant depending on the conditions, but to be honest, I haven't really figured it all out exactly! Some people say more sunlight is needed to get a thicker wax to form, but I don't think that is true for all of the plants. I've seen that as the case with Blue Mammoth, here at least, because the groups of Blue Mammoth that get 4 to 5 hours of sunlight are extremely blue, yet those in the shade are much less blue. However the opposite happened with Kiwi Full Monty, which had more blue color when it was in a little more shade than in sunlight.

Sure wish I knew what causes a hosta to develop more wax on the leaves. Is it a defense mechanism to protect itself? I wonder if anyone else can help provide some more insight on this?

[thy]

I know they need some sun to make the blue layer of wax. If planted in real shade up here, most of the blue ones stay green,.. Then there is the but...

June got a dusty blue with a geenish center in more or less total shade up here, but you need more than one h. June so one of them was planted in more or less all day sun and got green with a yellow/ sort of white center= very pale yellow, but 4 steps away was my Camelot, getting maybe 20 minutes more of midsummer evening sun and it was BLUE

[Aud]

I would like to throw in another observation that soil may also make the difference. I do not have the money to invest in some of the newer blues so most of what I have are older ones that I have had for years.

When I moved I dug up most of my hostas and Halcyon and June were my stand ins for my design of blues and yellows. I noticed Halcyon was green. At first I thought it was stressed from the move the first year the second year the same thing. I finally started to think of what could be the problem. In my other house I had more evergreen trees close to my shade garden. I started giving the hosta garden Miracle-gro Acid fert that summer and when I raked my needles up the following fall I threw them in the hosta garden. The Halcyon returned to its gorgeous blue. I am thinking acidic soil helped with the blue at least it did with Halcyon.

[thy]

Intersting......
Had a fight for keeping my former garden soil down to 7.
Haven't tested my new garden, too much added compost, but the public grass areas, surrounding the house indicate a low PH, there is a lot of moss in the open for the sun area.

But... chime in, you all have sort of blue hostas