Woohoo!!! Happy sprout dance!! My hosta 'El Nino' has sprouted in the WS jug!! I just went out and had a look. The sprouts are too tiny to even take a picture of yet but I can see them. They're definitely hosta sprouts--I can see from their pointy shape. 'El Nino' is a medium-size, gorgeous blue with just a thin edging of creamy white. I read (somewhere) the seeds are sterile but obviously whoever said that didn't try to WS them!!

The seeds are starting to arrive at their destinations, so everyone, keep their eyes peeled. I mentioned already to someone, but thought I should make a general mention, that many of these seeds are somewhat, to very challenging to germinate. Sunflowers are cheap, easy to find, and popular for a reason (super easy to grow), and we were exchanging unusual seeds. Please be sure to look up any/all of the seeds you received that you received that you are unfamiliar with, so that you can have the best chance at success (some good sites for germination info: backyard gardener and Tom Clothier's site). Even with this knowledge, not everyone will be successful with everything. It took me four tries at germinating Actaea before I had any success, and I've been growing from seed for twenty years, so I (usually) know what I'm doing :-) But the theory is that you learn as much from your failures as from your successes, and where you're successful, you'll have some interesting plants for next to nothing :-) Happy gardening everyone! BP

Thanks yardmom, of the seedlings, that one, and the one in the last pic were the ones I was most anxious to use this year. Both have been finicky pod setters, but the AdeT x QOTS has a few pods for sure. The first is a big ol' streaked pod from 'Empress Wu' pollen, love it! Of the named breeders, the one I was most anxious to use was 'Fickle Blue Genes'. This is the first year it has flowered so I'm excited. FBG Dan

For stable streakers that just seem to stay streaked... I've grown Kisuji for at least 15 years with no stabilization and no solid sports. Ditto Korean Snow... shiny, streakier in spring, less striking later in season, but great shiny leaves and late yingeri-flowers. I've had Swirls for several years and divided it several times, still no stabilization or solids. Kaleidechrome - two plants since 2009 with no stabilization and really good streaking. Starship - ditto. I keep watching for stabilization, but no sign so far. Ice Age Trail is one of my problem plants - have to take off solid eyes every year. Galaxy - ditto. Same with Savannah Supreme - solids and the stabilized white margin form, Savannah. Sea Prize - lots of solids. (worth the trouble - very fertile, lots of neat streaked seedlings) Blizzard - a few solids but mostly apple green with yellow/cream margins - meaning Winter Snow. I'm going to caution about the use of the word reversion. I never use it (except maybe to curse a little bit that the oldtimers continue to pollute newer hosta people with its imprecision.) First of all, it could only be used if the belief is that part of the crown of a sport is going back to the exact same plant as the parent... June sported from Halcyon, so some believe the blue sport that appears on June is a "reversion" to Halcyon. I would argue that only a dna test would demonstrate that. For all we know, it is a new sport and will be bigger or smaller than Halcyon, or have more wax, or or or... I think there is a lot of variation in the market in what people are calling "Halcyon" because so many of the plants are tc culls from June - and I don't believe they are all identical to June's parent. This has gotten even crazier. Paul's Glory was a variegated sport from Perry's True Blue. I'm sure over the years people have removed solid blue sports from PG and relabeled them as PTB. But the tc process of PG resulted in lots of solid blue plants... but Zilis decided to call those a "sport" and registered it as Wheaton Blue. So why are those a sport, while the blue ones from June are a "reversion"? I should have asked Mark that at the convention. I just might email him about that! Reversion was a term that made a lot more sense in the "old days" when a variegated plant was usually propagated by dividing it off its solid parent - easy enough to see how some crown tissue from the parent could go along with the division... its a lot harder to explain how Halcyon genes make it through a tissue culture process of a June meristem, I think. Galaxy was a cross between a seedling of another streaker, Beatrice, and Frances Williams. It frequently stabilizes to an all green plant. What would it be "reverting" to? It never came from a green plant. But the biggest reason I hate the term is the way it gets used for plants that can't possible be "reverting" to anything. A seedling, for example - can't revert as it never came from another plant. Gunther's Prize is a streaked Sum & Substance... it might stabilize to a margined hosta or a centered hosta or a solid - but unless the solid the the chartreuse yellow of S&S, there is no way to call it a reversion - and, of course, even if it did end up gold, would I know for sure it is just another S&S? I don't think so. So - some streakers are more stable than others, and a home gardener not interested in growing streaked seeds would do well to purchase one of the more stable ones I mentioned at the top... but lets stick to asking about "stabilization" - not "reversions." Thanks!