Pic of the Day--Blue Cadet

[Hank Zumach]

Hi All--Today's variety, Blue Cadet, is one of the varieties that can serve as a workhorse in the garden. BC is not showy or an attention grabber but it fits is very well in a variety of circumstances and performs very well. We have several Blue Cadets in different parts of the garden, getting up to several hours of sun, and they all give us solid, trouble free performance. The size of our plants averages out to be a few inches larger than Zilis' listing of 38x15. The photos are of two different Blue Cadets.

Registry - http://www.hostaregistrar.org/detail.ph ... ue%20Cadet

MyHostas - http://myhostas.be/db/hostas/Blue+Cadet

Hosta Library - http://www.hostalibrary.org/b/bluecadet.html

Blue Cadet triangle 6-26-03c 005.jpg (52.85 KiB) Viewed 3139 times

[thehostagourmet]

Beautiful plants, Hank. Funny you should choose 'Blue Cadet' today. Last night when I got home, I couldn't resist looking at all the potted Hostas on the north side of the house. 'Blue Cadet' was the only one that had sprouted eyes, and lots of them. It was in the high 60's yesterday, but back to colder today.

George

[eastwood2007]

I love Blue Cadet. It was the first named hosta I got and is kinda responsible for giving me the bug! It performed so well, in a barrell, I have divided it every year and it comes back double each time! I have transplanted several and given a number of them away. It's like the Energizer Bunny! If I had gotten one that didn't do as well, I might not been in this gardening stuff at all. Not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing....could look at it both ways, I guess. I would have more money still in my pocket, but wouldn't be having nearly as much fun!

[jgh]

Wow, Hank... you are on a "back to the seventies" roll... next thing you know, we'll see a photo of you in a leisure suit doing disco!

Interesting that Blue Cadet is the pod parent of yesterday's POTD, Gold Edger. Both are Aden registrations. BC was registered in 1974 as a seedling of Tokudama... but it doesn't seem to have any Tokudama characteristics. On the other hand, Zilis notes how much the foliage and flowers resemble nakaiana species...

I think BC has established itself even though there is lots of competition for the "good medium blue" niche. BC seems to be a quicker grower than many other blues, and it makes a nice dense mound with good substance, even in deep shade. Mine is probably in too much shade - Hank's really shows what BC can do in the right spot.

BC is a profligate bloomer and forms lots of seed pods. Not surprisingly, there have been lots of named seedlings from BC - Zilis lists nine of them. There's only one of the BC children that I grow.

Tot Tot was registered by Aden in 1978 as a cross of Blue Cadet and venusta. It makes a much smaller mound than BC and I've got it in a planter. Zilis notes that even though it is a small mound, a clump can have 45 flower scapes.

Saturday_night_fever_movie_poster.jpg (17.55 KiB) Viewed 3092 times

[thy]

Very nice

seems like the BC 's here have longer leaves, mine is 6 or 7 years old so it is not a juvenile thing

Danny... are you around

Pia

[LucyGoose]

I have 2 BC's and they do just like you said.....I hope to dig up one of them this spring....

Hank, your pictures are excellant!!

@ Jim!!

[Tigger]

It's worth seeing this one in bloom, as it is quite effusive.

(does that work? how do I link to a previously uploaded pic, Chirs? If that doesn't work, go to my Journal entry or click here.)

The border is Blue Cadet interspersed randomly with the equally energetic Gold Drop (or is it instead Golden Edger, Blue Cadet's cousin?).[/url]

[eastwood2007]

great pic, tigger! Looks very warm and happy there!