Hosta 'Patriot' 3 July 2023

It might be appropriate for me to write this blog today on the eve of the Fourth of July.

It all began in Columbus, Ohio in 1991, sometime in June. I was there for my first National Convention of the American Hosta Society.

Bob Solberg

There was a knock on my hotel room door. I opened it to face a bearded man who looked like an officer from the Confederate Army.

He entered and in a whisper he told me, “Here is your Patriot.”

Hosta 'Patriot' was the exciting revelation of the year in Columbus as in the wake of the termination of the Gulf War the hosta was introduced in a wave of American patriotism.

With the hosta in my hand and with the whispering of Bob Solberg I almost felt I was buying a drug. The price was right for a drug as I shelled out $90.

Six years ago when Rosemary and I moved from our large Kerrisdale garden to Kits, many of my hostas went to my daughter Ale’s Lillooet garden. She might have my Patriot.

A year ago I saw Patriot at a garden centre and could not resist. What you see here is a juvenile plant. The leaves are small and not as rounded as on a mature plant. I could have waited a couple of days for the flowers at the end of the scape (hosta lingo for stalk) to open. I decided that I wanted to write something (for a change) on the positive side and with a touch of humour.

At the Hosta Convention in Ames, Iowa a month ago, my daughter Ale and I sat at a table at the hotel restaurant  with Hosta Journal art director Janet Mills, hosta expert extraordinaire Mark Zilis and with the never former Confederate Army officer but brilliant hosta hybridizer Bob Solberg. Ale was impressed that her father could command the attention of these luminaries. I was, too.

Mark Zilis, Janet Mills, Bob Solberg and Alexandra Waterhouse-Hayward - 8 June 2023