Hosta 'Royal Standard'

What’s blooming in the area behind the walls and fences: Hybrid tea roses, bird of paradise, buddleia, silver lace vine, honeysuckle, trumpet creeper, Heavenly Blue morning glories, sweet pea, purple phlox, Sensation cosmos, cultivated sunflower; farmer’s sunflower heads bent with oil heavy seeds; red showing in tomatoes.

Outside the fences: Tamarix, Apache plume, whorled milkweed, leather-leaf globemallow, velvetweed, scarlet beeblossom, white and yellow evening primroses, bindweed, datura, scarlet creeper, pale trumpets, clammy weed, stickleaf, Dutch, white prairie, and white sweet clovers, buffalo gourd, goat’s head, alfilerillo, silver-leaf nightshade, prostrate knotweed, toothed spurge, pigweed, Russian thistle, chamisa, goat’s beard, paper flower, spiny lettuce, horseweed, strap-leaf and golden hairy asters, áñil del muerto, native sunflowers, goldenrod, gumweed, Tahokia daisy, late summer grasses; buds of ragweed and purple asters.

In my yard looking north: Miniature roses, golden spur columbine, Hartweig evening primrose, squash, naturtium, chocolate flower, blanket flower, coreopsis, Mexican hat, black-eyed Susan, anthemis, yellow cosmos, chrysanthemum.

Looking east: Hosta, hollyhock, winecup, sidalcea, coral bells, Jupiter’s beard, large-leaf soapwort, baby’s breath, pink evening primrose, Shirley poppy, reseeded and Crimson Glory morning glories, garlic chives, cut-leaf coneflower, zinnias; buds on Autumn Joy sedum.

Looking south: Blaze and rugosa roses, rose of Sharon, Illinois bundle flower, tomatillo.

Looking west: Russian sage, caryopteris, catmint, lady bells, David phlox, flowering spurge, blue flax, perennial four o’clock, calamintha, purple ice flower, purple coneflower, Mönch aster; grape hyacinth leaves coming up.

Bedding plants: Moss rose, snapdragon, nicotiana, sweet alyssum, tomato, pepper.

Inside: Aptenia, asparagus fern, zonal geranium.

Animal sightings: Rabbit, goldfinch, hummingbird on hollyhocks, bees, wasp, dragon fly, black harvester and small red ants, mosquitoes.

Weather: Rain Monday and Wednesday; 13:17 hours of daylight today.

Weekly update: Trees, I was told growing up in Michigan, present special challenges because grass may not grow under them, or if it does, cannot be mowed when the roots are exposed.

The answer was to plant something like ivy or vinca under the canopy which would cover the bare spots. The first might also climb the trunk, while the other occasionally blooms.

An alternative was to surround the tree with plants with uniform, high foliage that would hide the barren areas. I saw lots of liriope used in the Dallas area in the 1980's, while hostas were common in an old Madison neighborhood I passed in 1991.

The idea of a circular bed surrounding a tree has taken on another life down the road where the owners have planted tall perennials around every young tree in their lawn, perhaps taking advantage of spot irrigation. A solution that became familiar with repetition in monochromatic greens in Wisconsin becomes silly when reproduced in bright yellow and rosy purple.

I developed a particular dislike for hostas when my mother stranded some plantain lilies on the north side of the house between the Japanese yew and the porch, further shaded by a lackluster Jackmanii clemantis. Not only did the plants probably need a little more sun and water than they received, but, as Allan Armitage warns, it takes hostas at least five years to reach maturity and another three to look anything like their pictures.

Eight years is a very long time for a child. By the time a six year old has turned fourteen, he or she no longer looks at nature the same way and opinions are definitely formed.

When it came time for me to find something for the deep shade under my raised walk, I discovered almost nothing, not even lilies of the valley or pansies, would grow because it was too hot and dry. Most shade plants are from forest environments and expect water.

In desperation, I ordered some Royal Standard hostas in 1998; the one closer to the sun survived. Later, I saw some Francee at a reasonable price in a big box in 2001; again one survived. Since weeds also won’t grow there, I’ve more or less abandoned the spot after plants in neighboring areas grew big enough to protect the dirt from the winds.

The two hostas behaved much as my mother’s plants had. They produce leaves every year, and the Royal Standard sticks up its naked artichoke tipped stalk every August. Francee bloomed in 2003 and 2005, but hasn’t bothered since.

This is the first year the Royal Standard looks good, and it’s not because of maturity. While it’s been struggling, another plant that doesn’t belong here, a Lady Banks rose, has slowly been getting established. Every winter, most of the canes die, and it regrows from the base. This year, its dark leaves have produced a lattice through which the gardenia-white flowers peak. I realized it’s the stem I most dislike about the plant.

Hosta weren’t always trite. The genus probably emerged in east central China before the last glaciers, and migrated to Korea and Japan, where the day-blooming species diversified. At least one, Hosta plantaginea, moved south where it bloomed at night and was fragrant.

The Chinese began cultivating yu zan during the Han dynasty (206 bc-220 ad). The plants first taken to France from Macao in 1784 by Charles de Guignes have no spontaneous wild relatives today. The plant my mother grew was the product of great artifice.

Wayside Gardens, founded in 1920 by Jan Jacob Grullemans and Elmer Schultz in Mentor, Ohio, was one of the primary sources for the roots for generations. My mother had their catalogs when I was a child, although she may have gotten her plants from a friend.

In 1963, Grullemans, now called John James, applied for a patent for Royal Standard, which he developed by fertilizing a plantaginea flower with pollen from a sieboldiana, a hardier plant from Japan. He basically kept all the features of the mother, the fragrant white flowers and wide, ovate yellow-green leaves, but injected the vigor of the male.

His goal was apparently to make my mother’s plant a bit less sulky, a bit more palatable to the diverse customers for his nursery. While Gruellemans says it prefers "wet, hot seasons and rich loam or clay loam," it’s resistence to drought is described as "good."

After his success, and that earlier by Alex Cummings with Honeybells, a cross between the same species introduced in 1950, others began hybridizing different varieties of hostas. Since the late 1960's, breeders have been able to exploit tissue culture to expedite their work, rather than the root divisions use by Grullemans.

Hostas are now marketed for their foliage, with recommendations that people use a number of cultivars to produce a "marvelous contrast in texture and color." Armitage even suggests people remove the stalks that "detract from the magnificence of the plant." Of course, gardeners space them for their mature size, and so most young plantings look like collections of specimens separated by mulch as dreary as my mother’s attempt.

That which can become exotic when left to itself in the rio arriba almost always looks mundane when grown by the rules.

As for the original problem with trees, my answer as a child was the yard of an abandoned house I passed on the way to school where lilies of the valley had gone wild under old maples. They had every characteristic of hostas - seasonal white flowers on stems rising from prolific foliage - but in miniature with darker greens that reinforced, not disrupted, the coolness of the shade.

Notes:
Armitage, Allan M. Herbaceous Perennial Plants, 1989.

Gruellmans, John James. "Hosta Plant," plant patent PP2467, issued January 1965.

Schmid, W. George. "H. plantaginea," 2007, on his Hosta Library website.

_____. "The Genus Hosta," 2008, American Hosta Society website.

Wayside Gardens. Catalog, Spring 1986, "marvelous" quote.

Photograph: Hosta ‘Royal Standard’ around 10:15 in the morning, 15 August 2010.