Alex Waterhouse-Hayward: In Praise of Hosta Flowers

Hosta 'Sum and Substance' 14 July 2020

Even though I have been gardening with my Rosemary since 1986 (in our Kerrisdale home) and from 1975 when we moved Mexico City to Vancouver and had a little garden in Burnaby, I consider myself an amateur.

Perhaps part of that sobriquet has to do with the English term of the 19^th century when that meant that as an amateur archaeologist or historian your interest was guided by a love for it.

But another angle to amateur has to do with the fact that there is always something surprisingly new to be discovered from plants if one looks in detail.

The advent of the close-focusing smart phones and the macro capabilities of digital cameras has brought plants and particularly flowers into an in-your-face closeness that to me degrades the beauty of the flower overall.

Another fact, lost on many, is that a good, modern scanner (mine is an Epson Perfection V700 Photo) can shows detail that exceeds that of old-fashioned microscopes of our high school chemistry labs.

Since my first lucky scan (I did it on the impulse that usually follows idle boredom) sometime in 2001 of the Bourbon Rose Rosa ‘Reine Victoria’ I have been happily scanning not only roses but just about every plant from our garden.

My initial idea was to scan the plants at 100% size and with the day’s date. I was careful to make the colour of the plant as accurate as I could. I thought that other gardeners or botanical institution might want to compare notes.

Nobody was ever interested but I have persisted. My friend, lawyer Christopher Dafoe and our friend and our fave real estate agent, Tim Turner, are the only two persons who ever paid cash for large inkjet prints.

But I keep on. I have not lost the amazing delight of seeing a plant in all its beauty. From the beginning I was lucky to have an old art-deco lamp on my Edwardian desk. It, bamboo poles and clothes pins, enabled me to suspend delicate roses whose petals would squash if the flower were touching the glass.

Another problem is with white roses and other white flowers. They over-expose beyond repair if they touch the glass. Because the scanner top is left open the ceiling of the room appears black.

Of late, in the doldrums of this pandemic, I have been putting particular emphasis on the flowers of hostas.

As a former member of the American Hosta Society (and soon to be one again!), I know that most hybridizers and enthusiasts are so lost in the glamour of hosta leaves that they consider the hosta flowers which grow on stalks, properly called scapes, as insignificant. Some may harp on the lovely scent of the August Lily (the species Hosta plantaginea) and its sports but that is where any notice of the flowers ends.

To me the hosta flower, from beginning to end (the change can be gradual), is something of exceptional glamour and elegant style. Not noticing a hosta flower is like not knowing of the underside of a moss rose or to notice the changing colour of a red Gallica Rose that sometimes shifts to a purple that can even have a metallic sheen.

If all goes well I might find myself at the American Hosta Society Convention next year in Kalamazoo, Michigan championing the wonders of hosta flowers.