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Getting
'Satisfaction'
This was originally written in 1994 to introduce Hosta
'Satisfaction'
One of the best things about growing
thousands of Hostas is that the odds are pretty good that you're going to
see a number of sports and maybe someday find something really good.
Our friends down at Mobjack Nurseries found 'Patriot' among the thousands of
pots of 'Francee' that they grow, and of course it has become one of the
most popular of recent introductions. We're always prowling through
the growing beds, looking for the plant that's going to make us rich and
famous.
We hear that, occasionally, new sports
will spring forth from a mature clump, an obvious color break, ready for the
tissue culture lab. More often, these days, they originate in the
tissue culture labs themselves, as in the seemingly unending variations on
the Tiara-Scepter series. So far, it hasn't happened that way for
us.
We have several sports and seedlings we
are growing for evaluation and possible introduction someday. The most
promising is one we have tentatively named 'Satisfaction'. Since we
are desperately trying to hold on to our youth and deny growing old, we are
giving all of our plants Rock 'n Roll names. For those of you who are
older or younger or just can't identify, please bear with us. Still
under evaluation are 'Sgt Pepper', 'Louie Louie', 'Proud Mary', 'Yellow
Submarine', and 'Judy Blue Eyes'. So much great rock 'n roll, so few
plants.
We first noticed 'Satisfaction' in 1991,
a single green segment - just the space between two veins- on one leaf of a
plant of 'Piedmont Gold'. Since the green streak went all the way down
the leaf petiole, we pulled the plant and put it aside, with about 50 other
variations on other cultivars. You never know.
The next year, the plant had multiplied
to four eyes, and on one leaf, on one eye, there was still a single green
streak. Not much progress, but at least it hadn't disappeared.
So we divided the plant and put aside the division with the streak.
In spring of 1993 we started to see some
progress when we got a leaf that was split right down the middle, one side
all gold, the other green with a gold margin. As summer progressed, a
few more half n' half leaves came up from that side of the plant. We
were making progress, and we found it hard not to check the plant every few
days just in case it decided to quit playing games, but after 3 years, we
were still only half way there.
Well, you're probably bored with the saga
by now, and we're running out of space. This spring, after four years,
one of the four eyes that came up was green with a nice irregular gold
margin. It's still a single eye division, just getting ready to bloom.
It's too young to judge its form, but if it grows like 'Piedmont Gold' we
think we may have a winner.
We have talked with Mark Zillis, Tony
Avent, and others who keep up with new introductions, and we haven't found
anyone who has this sport, but we remember a few years ago when several
growers came up with 'Abiqua Moonbeam' aka 'Mayan Moon', the green centered
form of 'August Moon' at about the same time. Mark Zillis tells us
that gold plants developing a green center is not as common as some other
forms of variegation. If you have, or know of a similar form of
'Piedmont Gold' please let us know. We're not going to hurry to
register the plant until we've grown it a bit longer, so if someone else
gets there first, we hope they'll pick a better name than 'Piedmont
Variegated'
For the time being, at least, you can't
get no 'Satisfaction'.
(Postscript 2007) Satisfaction was
registered in 2000. So far, it has made us neither rich nor famous,
but it's turned out to be a terrific plant.
In 2007, Walters Gardens, North America's leading wholesale perennial
grower, selected twelve hosta varieties to introduce as their "Designer
Hosta Collection", hostas that perform superbly in their testing sites
nationwide. We were pleased that 'Satisfaction' was one of the twelve
chosen.
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