Hosta 'Designer Genes' 9 June 2025

 

When Rosemary and I moved from our large corner garden house in Kerrisdale to a double dúplex in Kitsilano she was most unhappy. She told me, “We are going to have to learn to live with neighbours which we might not like”. She was mostly right.

There is a couple that lives across from me who are younger and I see in them what Rosemary and I were in the late 80s and early 90s. We were obsessed in showing off quality name clothing and she insisted we drive an Audi. My neighbours seem to have various Porsches and a Mini. They order everything on line and I believe they would never go to the supermarket. They have a planter on their front door. They buy plants once a week. They don’t water them so they die. I told the woman that if she planted a hosta it would survive bad treatment. She smiled probably thinking that my hostas are not for snobs.

I think that soon they will find out about how they live and they might just want to change their expensive views.

The above is but an overture, that while I no longer buy name clothing (I shop at Mark’s Work Warehouse), I do have Designer Genes. It is a lovely large hosta that is veridescent. This means that it emerges very light gold/green in spring and by July it starts darkening to green. I grow it in full sunlight and it takes it well.

My other designer jeans are the brand sold my Mark’s. I no longer own Levis or Lees or Jonathan Richman’s Wranglers. My wrist watch is a 1986 Timex and I drive a 7-year-old Chevrolet Cruze.