So glad you are feeling better. I know what sickness can do. My oldest sister and I have battled breast cancer and she lost her life a year and a half ago. I am doing well so far. I just try to keep going and not dwell on any of it.

What a georgous hosta. I will be interested to see what others have to say about it. I love hostas but don't have tons of shade. I squeeze in all I can.. I am always on the lookout for new ones.

I need to figure out how to post pictures. I enjoy seeing all the different ways people have them planted. I love the little ones the best but I have all sizes. I love sharing with family and friends. Our daughter built a new home back in a woods and I have given her tons and they are so pretty. She takes such pride in them. She now shares with friends, too.

I have only ordered a couple times. I usually buy from local gardening centers. We have a fabulous one a few miles away. It is huge and also has a neat tea room. Wonderful place to visit. It is at their home and you can walk around and view their gardens, too.

Have a great week.

Anybody have the new Hosta Finder that shows all the vendors who carry it?

White Feather is an Undulata sport that grows well for me. All the whites need good sun to thrive. Mine came from House of Hosta, Green Bay in '04 . . . .

That's White Wall Tire in the rear, little substance but a vigorous plant.

Ghost Spirit is another interesting variety if you find one with good markings from the get go.

it is white during the very early cool spring .... AS SOON AS THE HEAT HITS .... it will start greening .... it can be a very short show a lot of years ...

IF I WERE YOU .... i would buy a hosta that is amazing all season long.. rather than invest in an oddity like this ...

ken

IF I WERE YOU .... i would buy a hosta that is amazing all season long.. rather than invest in an oddity like this ...
ken

I agree with Ken in general but I also like the oddities that give something at different times.

Not exactly related to this question but my fav is Pauls Glory that looks different about everyday of the year or Whirlwind that looks special for a while then rather common.

What ever blows your skirt up?

NEVER forget that there are different levels of audience reading these things ..

if you have a couple hundred ... and you like oddities and you have no real budget for hosta .... get the weirdos ...

but if you are new.. only have a few.. well ... you have a long way to go before you need some foo foo thing that is this weird ...

ken

If you like oddities,here's another Undulata sport called Kiwi Spearmint. It,too greens up later on,but is neat in early spring as mine is now. Phil
{{gwi:957006}}

Aw, Ken, we do a lot of 'short shows' like tulips and daffodils that give us a blaze of glory for a couple days, then we have to endure their ratty foliage for 2 whole months. And many of the perenniels have short bloom periods, then they're just more green 'plants'.

Lisasmall I got this one from the Naylor boys last week and it is wonderful. Just planted it this past Saturday. Its starting to green up...I love the way it looks at this stage too. Kind of like a zebra.

Variety is the spice of life.

Ken, always grateful for the advice. I am this:close to having the hosta terraces of my dreams completed, and maybe I can wait another week to see if I actually have room, much less budget, for a little weirdo like this... but I do like weird.

PlayInMud, thank you for the Naylor report; I expect no less from them! :) Also thank you for telling me it's already greening. Hmm, hmmm. Next year, maybe, then.

Maryann Chicago, thanks for the pix! Would you say that 'White Feather' has more substance than 'White Wall Tires'? And thanks also for the 'Ghost Spirit' pic; which I have in a small pot which is finally going into the ground this weekend. Do you prefer the misty leaves on the left, or the clearer, more undulata-ish leaves on the right? Should I be pinching those off?

HostaFreak, I already have a 'Kiwi Spearmint' lookalike, which the hybridizer indignantly assured me couldn't be the real thing, based on the presumed age of the plants  but since it appears to be precisely identical after six years of observation, pfffth! I'll post some pix during the season so you can see. Here's a link (below the photo) to a close-up of one of my 2005 pics &mdash please let me know if the link worked for you, and if Photobucket would let you wander around in the album when you click on the non-close-up photo at the bottom of this message. I'd really like to make all those photos public but I'm not sure I've succeeded!

Here is a link that might be useful:

I purchased my White Feather from Van Bourgondien this spring and I must say they where extremely healthy stock and have performed well so far.
John

John! Hey, thank you for weighing in; coming from you, that's high praise.

(For those who don't know, John is a hosta vendor himself, and has always delivered great plants to me.)

Here is a link that might be useful: Diggindutchman = Hostabargains at eBay

links to businesses are forbidden by the rules .... i am glad diggin didnt link it himself ....

i dont participate here to increase the biz of other people .... go figure.. ken

Lisa, my 'whites' broke ground a few days ago, so I fingered White Feather. It does has more substance than White Wall Tire. I like both looks of Ghost Spirit but should be dividing off those whiter leaves to keep it misty, looks like there are many eyes there. If it were reverting to all green (Valentine Lace), I'd just be snapping them off.

Ken, I don't want to get on your bad side, but I think you're mistaken about this. Hosta forum people link to businesses all the time. Look at how I started this thread, for example. Self- promotion is not allowed, but I'm not promoting myself. I have no financial connection to John / Diggindutchman / Hostabargains at all except as a happy customer.

I checked what I think you mean by the rules, and they say no advertising  but as you note, John wasn't advertising. He didn't even mention his business. I'm the one who brought it up, and that's just info-sharing, not advertising, same as I did with the four businesses I listed at the start of this thread, same as most of us do whenever we are reporting about a hosta vendor.

You said, "i dont participate here to increase the biz of other people" Â I don't understand. Have you opened a hosta business of your own, and I missed it while I was absent the past year? Because I'd love to buy hostas from you, even if I'd need a backhoe and a semi-trailer to do it!

Maryann__Chicago, thank you! I appreciate your comparison of these two, and I'm going to take your advice on 'Ghost Spirit' and take out the leaves with the clear white that's too reminiscent of undulata.

I am so glad to see this topic! My husband and I are both mother-less (both deceased) and we have no children so we spent Mother's Day (my first since losing my mom) shopping at nurseries. We figured it would be a great distraction...and it was. I found two nice hostas today; WHITE FEATHER and ST ELMO'S FIRE. I'm not sure what I'm doing with either, but I just had to have the White Feather. I had never seen it before and the tag said, "new." I paid $30 for a rather small, but healthy looking specimen. I trust this nurseryman because I've purchased hostas from him before and he is a hosta nut, like me. (I bout Hi Ho Silver from him and when I mentioned the plant to him he said he hasn't been able to get any more in. Maybe when mine reproduce I can sell some back to him...... Nah....can never have to many, on second thought).

We bought St. Elmo's Fire because it is pretty AND because it was "our song" during our courtship. :-)

So... I don't know what I'm doing with White Feather, either, and hope your post will provide us BOTH with some good ideas. In the meantime, I google/imaged Hosta white feather and got the following hit
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=hosta+white+feather&gbv=2&aq=f&oq=
I'm thinking it may look nice with Hosta "Little White Lines" (Darn, I don't have that one so I guess I'll be FORCED to buy another hosta.) It would look nice with a blue hosta, but don't they require more shade? And the White Feather would need more sun to stay white, right? So...it wouldn't work. But the Little White Lines may do okay in the sun and have just enough white accent to complement the White Feather. I don't want it to get lost in something more variegated. Maybe I'll pare it with a Sedum and a creamy iris. Or, I have a creamy colored miniature rose it would compliment.....

Decisions, decisions.

'White Feather' WILL turn green (viridesce) during the growing season. It has to, in order to survive, but it comes up white again the next spring.

This is not a reversion (the way eyes of some white-and-green hostas suddenly turn solid green forever) and you shouldn't pull the leaves off (the way you'd remove the eye from a reverting plant).

I have mine planted where it gets bright shade but no direct sun except for about 90 minutes in the morning. It is doing very well and I am very happy.

It's still almost all-white now on May 11! I agree with you -- 'Little White Lines' is a nice choice as a companion, whether your Feather is in its white mode or switching over to green.

Don't get scared when the switch begins with green creeping out from the veins. It is not HVX or any other disease; it is just the way the plant viridesces every year, making chlorophyll to store food in the roots for growth this year and a healthy return next year. Click the photo for more info.

I expected to have trouble with slugs, but there wasn't any last year nor has there been yet this year. My big problem right now is chipmunks, but they have left 'White Feather' alone so far.