Hallson Gardens

Is there a rule of thumb about the percentage of open pollinated hosta being self-pollinated? I am sure that this is affected by several factors such as whether the variety has viable or low fertility pollen, whether it is part of a mass planting of the same variety or a single instance, whether the variety blooms ahead or behind of most other hostas, whether fertilization is more likely to happen in the morning or afternoon for that variety, etc.
I would assume that the chances of self-pollination are pretty high but this is based on my own limited experience in raising seedlings from pods I happened to have been given by other gardeners rather than a comparison of seed flats from controlled crosses.

Hi Dovid,

I think that if a flower is open pollinated it is self pollinated in almost all cases, but I don't know about exact percentages.

I would guess that if you have some other hosta flowers blooming at the same time and in close proximity, plus there is a lot of bee activity then you would see more cross pollination than if your plants were far apart. I also know that some plants will bloom late in the day, so their pollen will be more viable at different times so are less likely to cross with others that bloomed at a different time of day.

The one thing I've noticed here is that our growing area hostas are planted very close together, so I have seen more cross pollination there than in the garden. So while open cross pollination is definitely possible you would need to grow a lot of open pollinated seedlings to find them and then you may not be completely sure about the parents.

I hope that helps. Hopefully others will weigh in on their experiences too.

Chris

I agree that most open-pollinated, are cross-pollinated. My reasoning being that on these particular hostas, nearly every single flower sets a seed pod. Doesn't seem the result of random pollination. Other hostas which set very few pods are more likely to be cross-pollinated. Does that sound right?