For sure, getting them watered MORNINGS is important to let the pollen and such stay on the blooms for night time visitors. ====>>> pollen doesnt work that way ... its only viable for a few hours... and degrades in heat very fast ... the ones that are viable.. any given night .. opened that afternoon ... i doubt it lasts over thru the next day.. and perhaps an indicator.. is that it has little scent left .. by the next morning .. i am guessing on that part... but it makes sense not to bother to lure in the pollinators.. if the pollen is dead ... being a species.. P should come true from seed ... but because it opens so late in summer ... there is not enough time for the pods to mature to viable seed .... for many of us the further north you go ... [90 days from 8/15 is mid-november.. and the plants are dead to the ground for me in MI ] ... some have tried cutting the stalks before freeze and trying to mature them in sugar water ... i lost interest at that point ... lol ... so ... if you wanted.. as your goal.. to add fragrance to your seedlings.. you 'take' pollen from P .... in the evening.. and somehow 'store' it.. to put on something else .. the next morning when those flowers are fresh .. ... [they used to use those black film canisters.. of which.. i bet you cant even buy them now ...] .. [for the truly crazed ... you try to store your pollen in august.. to put it onto those very early sieboldianas the following may.. i think it can be done in the freezer.. but again.. i lost interest at that point.. lol ...] BUT!!! ... being a species.. it would be time/effort wasted to put pollen of other things.. onto P .... it will not be accepted ... there.. more useless hosta knowledge ... i cant remember how old i am.. but i remember this stuff.. of course.. that might just be denial ... lol .. ken

Don, my previous post must have posted and I bet we both missed the other one being here. Hope to tell you, I agree about Fragrant Fire. It is absolutely gorgeous. Big and unique bright green with white margins of good size. Sweet arch to the leaf too. And what's not to like? It sported from Old Faithful (an Olga, and I think you got it recently?).....I'm hoping that the SEEDPODS set on my Old Faithful lead to viable seed. Nice. One that I now believe you MUST get is White Knight. I took a picture of it today, with its big white flowers still open and there on the scapes some very nice seedpods. It was late afternoon and it had rained about an inch earlier in the afternoon, so I could not judge fragrance very well. My strategy is changing. Instead of placing all the fragrant ones close together, I shall have to space them with suitable partners that are known to be good producers one way or the other. My 4 or 5 (?--did I misplace one?) Royal Standards are coming into bloom now, and I'll post a picture below, of it and White Knight. Two of three Aphrodites are tantalizing me with big starry topped scapes. Avocado is blooming his heart out and no seedpods no seedpods. Doubled Up is still producing trumpet sized! white 6 inch flowers....sigh, I love that beauty. ...Miss Saigon is blooming ....Rich Uncle set 3 seedpods (is it fertile?)...Victory set a gazillion ....Pods on Journey's End and Golden Meadows and Seducer and Orange Marmalade and Fragrant Blue (YES, LOTS), Clear Fork River Valley, Paradise Sunshine, IRISH LUCK, Yellow Splash Rim, SWEET MARJORIE, Twist of Lime, Maui Buttercups, Climax (YES LOTS)..... I guess it is a good thing that not all seeds are fertile, because a little goes a long way. One of these days I'll figure out about plants. Hold on, here they come..... White Knight Fragrant Fire Royal Standard Aphrodite making a star appearance Fragrant King....big blooms and seedpods too? Wow! Irish Luck with 1 seed pod...better than nothing Paradigm...not fragrant, but look at those seedpods..:) Same for Climax....not fragrant but lots of fat pods Journey's End....now, I'm in LOVE with those seedpods And to wind it up, here is Sweet Marjorie, a fragrant hosta. Nice show for a hosta new here this spring. Hope I did not go on too long, but how do you stop!

discussions of SHADE are problematic ... full shade can be no sun hitting a leaf.. but with trees limbed up 40 feet.. extremely bright.. to the point where you still need sunglasses ... or a dank cave ... sooooo .. how hosta do in your shade... in your yard... is left to you to figure out ... if we presume white tissue is pretty .. but useless to a hosta, since it does not produce food for the plant.. then it would follow.. that plants with a lot of white can NOT be put in deep shade ... since the white tissue can not help it process the little light available ... to make food .. so that the hosta thrives .... so as a gross rule of thumb.. try to avoid putting said plants in deep shade ... ken

Teuth, ain't no doubt plantaginea is the most fragrant one, its heritage is in the vast majority of fragrant cultivars, having said that, it requires full sun and heat. Just for fun, read what Schmid has to say on this specie. Where I am, in Steveston, I cannot give it the required amount of sun exposure to get it to flower, out here in the Lower Mainland it NEEDS full sun before it will flower reliably. A friend of mine has a couple of them flanking the stairs to his front door in around 49th and Kingsway with full southern exposure and they're magnificent in August. Any that I've had over the years having never had open flowers, the buds invariably aborted, so I finally gave up on it. I do however have a variety of fragrant hostas such as 'Fragrant Bouquet', 'Guacamole' and 'Stained Glass' as the most reliably performers but they compete in the yard with Oriental Lilies, which win out in the fragrance department every year, particularly during the day, the hostas become more noticeable in the evening, you just have to get closer to them than the lilies. I also have 'Fragrant Blue', which took years before it finally started to produce any fragrance and it is very different from the ones mentioned above, more like Freesias and quite subtle, definitely something you have to stick your nose in before you smell it. Thank goodness it's such a nice shade of blue, a vigorous grower and set seeds readily. Pieter