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| Olga Petryszyn & Hosta 'Coast to Coast' 21 May 2022 |
Living alone without one’s wife of 52 years is a terrible moment in time that persists from day to day and does not diminish.
There are a few things that help me ameliorate my grief. Some of them are the daily household distractions which I call menialities. I clean, I vacuum, I work in the garden, put my sheets and clothes into the washer and I take care of my brother and sister cats, Niño and Niña. Since my Rosemary’s death on December 9, 2020 the cats are like glue. They follow me wherever I go and a most important daily activity (when weather permits) is to walk Niño around the block.
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| Scanning Hosta 'Coast to Coast' |
The weekly visit by my younger daughter Hilary helps lots as she provides me with that family human warmth that I crave andfind so necessary.
It is precisely because of Hilary’s visits, that I make my bed, shave and the house is spotless. I don’t want Hilary to tell her sister Alexandra that Papi is letting go!
From May on the garden provides me with lots of plants that I want to scan. Scanning the plants (arranging them on my scanner before I do it) is no different from taking photographs or painting. It is my daily artistic activity.
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| Hosta 'Coast to Coast' & Rosa 'Fantin Latour' 22 May 2022 |
But I am happy to state that I have been hit by an obsession.
I have written here how on June 8 I will be giving a PowerPoint presentation The Beauty of Hosta Flowers at the National Convention of the American Hosta Society in Minneapolis.
I want to have the latest of everything that I can. An October 2021 obsession was to coax my Hosta tardiflora (it usually flowers in September when most hostas do so in June) to flower so that I could project in Minneapolis something of definite interest to those hosta aficionados.
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| Hosta 'Coast to Coast' & Centaurea cyanus |
But something else has happened. A few weeks ago I went to a new close by nursery and saw a lovely gold (yellow) hosta called Coast to Coast. Because it had been grown in a warm greenhouse it had a scape (hosta lingo for for stalk) that would flower before the end of May. This meant that I could project in Minneapolis a hosta flower of this year when that hosta would yet to bloom there!
Many things happened since to increase the obsession. Talking to my hosta friend C.H. Falstad (the plant patents, etc man at Walters Gardens in Michigan), he told me to be sure to find Olga Petryszyn at the convention as she is a very good hybridizer and artist.
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| Hosta 'Coast to Coast ' 19 May 2022 |
He did tell me that she had hybridized Coast to Coast, but did not tell me that this hosta, which grows to be a giant one, was named the hosta of the year for 2020.
I returned to the nursery and bought a second Coast to Coast so that I could cut the scape and yet-to-open flower for scanning while I wait for the other to open.
Since then
I have been awfully busy scanning. I even found a way of scanning the hosta scape while still in its pot.
There were a few portraits of hosta people that I believe I took at one of the last two hosta conventions I attended. One was in Portland in 1996 and the other in 2002 in Spokane.I did go to Falls Church (outside Washington DC) in 2003 with Rosemary and Rebecca) but because I drove to Portland and Spokane I took my studio lighting system so I had those portraits.
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| Hosta 'Coast to Coast'19 may 2022 |
There was one woman I photographed and I had no idea who she was. I sent the scan to C.H. and he identified her as Olga! Imagine that!
And so I provide you in this blog with many of my Hosta ‘Coast to Coast’ scans.
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| From top - Gerbera Daisy, Stylophorum diphyllum, Hosta 'Coast to Coast' & below Solenia x hiemalis - 20 may 2022 |
