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| Phlox subulata 'Candy Stripe' & Hosta 'Autumn Frost' - 7 May 2022 |
In Vancouver I am a member of the Vancouver Rose Society. When Rosemary was alive we were both also members of the Alpine Garden Society.
I am particularly proud of having returned to the fold of the American Hosta Society. I will be presenting a talk on the beauty of the often overlooked hosta flowers at the National Convention in Minneapolis that begins June 8th. My daughter Hilary, who is not a gardener, but like Rosemary enjoys breakfasts in American hotels, is tagging along. She will find the folks of the society very warm and they will be interested in her expertise on wellness and diet.
What I particularly like about the American Hosta Society is that many of its members are not only interested in the beauty of hostas but they are also interested on the scientific side of botany. One of my special friends is C.H. (Clarence) Falstad. Below you will see the email I sent him today. I wonder what he will reply?
Dear CH,
I remember discussing at length the topic of ultra violet light with Wolfram George Schmid. As a photographer I can tell you that film, video, tv cameras and digital cameras are overly sensitive to the ultra violet spectrum. This is on the opposite end of what we see as humans, those reds, oranges and yellows. We get into differences of opinion when we get into the blue/green side of things. We cannot agree when something is more green than blue. Turquoise is a problem.
As you know Kennedy won the presidency because Nixon did not use makeup. I watched the debate while in my Texas boarding school pool room for juniors and seniors. Kennedy wore pancake makeup invented by Max Factor. He mixed sunblock (blocks UV) with lanolin, perfume and a pink colour.
When I started buying hostas I remember seeing images of Hosta 'Blue Moon'. It was intensely blue. By then I sort of suspected why.
1. In the shade there is more UV.
2. Photographs were taken with film and perhaps purposely left to look as blue as they were not.
Schmid and could not decide if blue hostas had that colour in order to repel what could be damaging sunlight UV. What do you know about this?
When I was about to get my right eye cataract removed a Portland friend told me that cataracts affected how we perceive colour. One sunny day as I was driving I looked at some clouds. When I closed my right eye the cloud was whiter. It was then that I noticed that our bedroom doors were not light ivory but white!
A few days later, while in my garden I noticed how suddenly Hosta 'Autumn First Frost' was an unearthly blue. Because of my previous cataract the yellow made that hosta look less blue.
I am enclosing a scan of Hosta 'Autumn Frost' I did today. I purposely added blue to the scan and modified by doing so the pinkness of the phlox. And yet that hosta does not look as blue as it does to my eye on my deck. Any theories?
What do you think?
Alex
