Pic of the Day--Iron Gate Delight

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

Pic of the Day--Iron Gate Delight

Post by Hank Zumach »

Hi All--Iron Gate Delight is yet another variety that has confusion surrounding it. Zilis shows a photo and describes a plant that is streaked and unstable. He does make a reference to a stable white edged form that had not been named. Wade & Gatton also describe IGD as a streaked plant. The photos in the Hosta Library (one of which is mine from 2001) show unstreaked plants. Zilis lists the plant at 36x16, Lemke's registration information says 20x16, and the Hosta Library gives 24x16. Last year our plant was 53x27. So, I guess we have to assume that a mistake has been made some where along the line.

My Iron Gate Delight was purchased in 2001 and was planted under trees where it gets only filtered sun light. IGD has had a good, steady growth rate. Startiing in 2001 IGD has measured 31x14, 36x18, 42x24, 50x24 and 53x27 in 2006. Slugs have been a controllable problem.

Registry - http://www.hostaregistrar.org/detail.ph ... %20Delight
MyHostas - http://myhostas.be/db/hostas/Iron+Gate+Delight
Hosta Library - http://www.hostalibrary.org/i/irongd.html

The photos are from 2002, 2004, and 2006.
Iron Gate Delight 6-26-06c.jpg
Iron Gate Delight 7-2-04c.JPG
Iron Gate Delight 6-24-02c 005.jpg
Hank
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caliloo
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Post by caliloo »

Great looking plant Hank!

And as to confusion - oh are you right on with this one! When I got it a couple of years back, I was really PO'd because I exprected it to be streaked, I stomped inside to check the description and it said streaked also (zilis). Then I checked the HL, all ready to call the seller and have them send me the "correct" plant and lo and behold, all the pictures are green with a white edge.

:o :eek: :o

SO anyway, I kept it, love it and think maybe it was streaked at some point and stabilized to an edged plant?

Who knows - it is a great one anyway!

Alexa
Spring - An experience in immortality.
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jgh
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Location: Plymouth, Minnesota zone 4

Post by jgh »

As an educator, I'm glad to add to the confusion...

Van Sellers , owner of Iron Gate Gardens, hybridized a series of plants and named them in the early 80's. He used plantaginea as the pod parent and pollen from Tokudama Aureonebulosa.

Zilis describes IGD as "streaked and mottled with solid creamy white areas; some also margined with creamy white..."

Zilis also describes Iron Gate Glamour as "the most stable of the variegated Iron Gate cultivars. It becomes a very attractive mound of white-margined foliage with the bonus of fragrant flowers."

With the plantaginea heritage, we can guess where the fragrance comes from - but the flowers are purple, not the large white plantaginea-type flowers we see in most fragrant cultivars.

The Color Encyclopedia of Hostas (Grenfells, Shadrack 2004) also describes it differently... "light olive-green irregularly margined yellow to ivory-white, with many streaks jetting toward the midrib..."

But I got tc of IGDelight in 2000 from Shady Oaks, and already that year they described IGD as "resembles an improved 'So Sweet' with a wide creamy-white border on green leaves. Very fragrant flowers in mid-summer. Its vigorous growth makes this a choice selection. Uncommon in the trade." It was a moderately expensive tc that year.

Mine starts off with a yellow margin, turning to white in midsummer. It is a medium green, nothing like the olive in Grenfell or the yellow-green I've seen posted by other hosta growers. Mine has actually been shrinking each year since 2003 when the first pic was taken... it is just too close to the ex-silver maple. I've never considered it very fragrant.

Zilis gives us another hint about all this confusion... in his description of Iron Gate Glamour. He says "I once compared the leaves of seven 'Iron Gate Supreme' clumps growing in different gardens and came up with the expected result. Only two clumps had leaves that were consistently streaked. The leaves of three clumps had sported to the more stable, green-margined, white-centered form, one had white-margined, streaky-centered leaves, and one had all green foliage.

And one final hint... Zilis also lists Iron Gate Supreme as the white-margined, green-centeredd sport of Iron Gate Supreme.

Best guess... Iron Gate Delight was supposed to be streaked, Iron Gate Glamour was supposed to be the stabilized margin cultivar - but the IGD stabilized as they were being prepared for resale and now the most common IGD is the stabilized plant.

Finally - Mine look great early in the season... but then insects and environment attack it, especially the margin. Very similar to Hank's experience with Wolverine, only my W is great but my IGD is always getting shaggy by midsummer. I'll post pics of the early June, 2005 plant with yellow margins, the early September 2003 plant with white margins, and a couple of closeups with leaf damage... the second one is in my neglected "nursery" area and kind of extreme, but you "get the picture" of my problems with IGD.
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S15 16 Iron Gate Delight rdcd.JPG
June 1, 2005
June 1, 2005
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jgh
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Location: Plymouth, Minnesota zone 4

Post by jgh »

if the first two pics are "the Good"

then these are "the Bad and the Ugly"
Attachments
Iron Gate Delight closeup rdcd.JPG
S15 16 Iron Gate Delight closeup rdcd.JPG
S15 16 Iron Gate Delight closeup rdcd.JPG (52.61 KiB) Viewed 2343 times
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renaldo75
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Post by renaldo75 »

I've had Iron Gate Delight since 2002 or 2003 & in 2003 it found a home in a very shaded part of one garden. It never bloomed so I moved it last year to a spot that will get more sun & where it won't have to fight roots. Its leaves have never looked bad like Jim's. I've always wondered about the margin version vs the streaked plant Zilis describes, but thought that perhaps all of the original plant stabilized to a margin or that it became a margined plant when it was in TC. You don't want to lose your investment so you keep the name & put the TC's out for sale.

To further add confusion to Jim's theory on Iron Gate Delight & Iron Gate Glamour, I did a private trade with the photo~artist formerly known as RockinCPeg last summer & one of the plants she sent me was Iron Gate Glamour. It's a margined plant, but the leaves from her mature plant are significantly larger & the plant seemed to be more upright than Iron Gate Delight.
Iron Gate Delight - 3.625" W x 7.125" L
Iron Gate Glamour - 5.25" W x 7.25" L

I'll be interested to see what Zilis says about IGD & the other Iron Gates in his next book - if he ever finishes it.....
GO HAWKEYES!!!

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Linda P
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Location: N W Illinois, zone 5

Post by Linda P »

Here is a pic of my Iron Gate Delight taken last year. (Pardon the hail damage) I've had it since 2001, when it was a tiny little one-eye division. It has maintained about 1/3 to 1/2 streaky leaves most years. I have not divided it since I got it. This pic shows the streaking fairly well.
It's had a good growth rate, and mine does have fragrant flowers, though you have to get really close to smell them.
Linda P
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Iron Gate Delight May 25 06.JPG
Iron Gate Delight May 25 06.JPG (52.53 KiB) Viewed 2297 times
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impatience
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Post by impatience »

Here is a pic of my Iron Gate Supreme. I have to yank out the solid green leaves about every other year. I have had this one for about 6 years.

According to Zillis this plant is rare to find as most have reverted.
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Iron Gate Supreme.JPG
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