Barbara suggested I post my response to her rather than paraphrasing. Sorry if it's a tad long. ----------------------------- Hi Barbara Jo, Thanks for the opportunity to respond. I would agree with you that �Venus� is looking "weird". As others mentioned, without any testing it really is impossible to say much with any certainty. But before I say anything why don�t you simply mail the plant back to me. I can credit your account, send you a refund, or replace the plant next spring since I ran a batch of �Venus� through my own TC lab. Life is too short for you to worry about this and you will likely second guess yourself if you simply destroy the plant. We routinely run hosta samples thru Agdia for the entire battery of hosta virus testing. We do this as a normal matter of course with our TC lab. The Agdia testing includes: Arabis Mosaic Virus, Cucumber Mosaic Virus, Hosta Virus X, Impatiens Necrotic Spot Virus, Tomato Ringspot Virus, Tomato Spotted Wilt Virus and Tobacco Rattle Virus. These represent the full spectrum of viruses known to infect hosta. Of these 7 viruses, only HVX is hosta specific (as far as we know) and is only spread by mechanical means. HVX is not spread by insect vectors (again as far as we know). The other viruses are non hosta specific and spread by insect vectors (thrips, nematodes, etc). I can isolate your plant and have it tested next time we send some samples to Agdia. So why would I bother? A couple of reasons. We put our reputation on the line with every hosta we sell. We take all customer feedback seriously. No grower is perfect, but we work very hard to ensure our plants are virus and nematode free. We only offer plants that have come thru tissue culture and have been virus indexed. For older plants that are no longer available at the wholesale level we started our own TC lab. If we ever do have a problem I want to know about it and proactively deal with it. The second reason is based on knowing the actual history of the batch of �Venus� that you obtained. Every grower should be able to explain to their customers in some detail where their hosta stock comes from. We preach this to all of our American Hosta Growers Association members. The reason why �Venus� is hard to find is that it has only been available to growers as bare root stock from Holland. We stopped dealing with the Dutch growers about 10 years ago when the HVX thing hit the fan. As a result we had not offered �Venus� in a number of years. However we had been growing a TC liner batch of plantaginea �Aphrodite� from Q&Z Nursery. They are one of the few TC labs that we deal with since Mark Zilis is adamant about virus indexing anything that goes into his lab. In any event we noticed that one plant that had sported to �Venus� as we counted over 30 petals when it bloomed one year. We continued to grow that plant in the greenhouse, divided it late last year, and offered a few for sale this spring. The parent plant was virus indexed and never showed any symptoms that would have concerned us (and we do watch them carefully). The other thing that caught my attention was that you moved the plant to a full sun situation during the middle of the summer. Even with a heat tolerant fragrant flowering cultivar, that would tend to burn the older foliage that had already been set in shadier conditions. Maybe it was a coincidence that this was about the same time that you noticed the "weird" foliage, or maybe it wasn�t a coincidence. We also see a lot of foliage that is "weird" looking this time of year as the plant is shutting down in response to shorter days and cooler temps. This time of year it is very difficult to visually analyze much of anything with hostas given everything else that is going on in the plant. This has been further reinforced in working closely with Dr. Ben Lockhart at the University of Minnesota on the current AHS sponsored HHX research. Sorry for the long winded answer, but I have a hunch this could be a good teachable moment for both hosta gardeners and hosta growers alike. When I test the plant I will also test the plants we produced from TC since they came from the same mother plant. If they both come back clean, the answer will be clear. If they are both virused the answer will also be clear. If your plant has a virus and the TC plants are clean, we will know that the viral infection took place in your garden sometime this year. Hosta'ly, Rob Mortko Made in the Shade Gardens 16370 W. 138th Terr Olathe, KS 66062 913-206-6939 www.HostaGuy.com

Yes Bart, see link below. When searching for seed sources for varieties I think Tania's superb tomato data base is the place to go to first. For the past couple of years the seeds have been shared between folks but for 2013 there are two places listed, one is Steve's Heritage seeds in CA and the other is Remy's Sample Seed Shop, where prices are lowest and she has some great other varieties as does Steve, who also lists a cousin of Captain Lucky called Serendipity. There's a third place in CA where it's newly offered but I haven't bookmarked that one yet and it's not on Tania's list, but if you want to find it just go to Google and enter Fred Hempel Captain Lucky and see if you get lucky. Fred has even mentioned it here at GW but as a green when ripe, which I and some others don't see the same way, but whatever.LOL Hope that helps. Carolyn Here is a link that might be useful: Captain Lucky Sources

It is usually early cool temp exposure that causes it so in my case, yes, the plant begins to put out new normal blooms. In your climate and much shorter season I might be inclined to leave at least some of them. Depends on if you have enough of a season left to get normal fruit set and ripening. Dave

I'm not really sure what your question is so please bear with me. The yellow one looks fairly normal for yellow pear, the one next to it has some zippering at the neck which is usually inconsistent water caused, and I can't see the other two nearly well enough in the pic to ID what the problem may be. The most common cause of problems with indeterminates grown in pots is too small a pot to begin with. Keeping the nutrient and moisture levels consistent is nigh on to impossible. As a general rule, the pot size that will cope with a determinate variety cannot cope with an indeterminate variety. Makes no difference if they are heirloom or hybrids. As Linda said, Yellow Pear is considered a spitter by most but it is a big plant and heavy producer, more so than many other indeterminates, so any pot/water/nutrient restrictions would be more noticeable with it. Any fertilizer that contains bone meal is likely one of the dry granular organic ones and they tend to work quite poorly in containers because there is no active soil food web to digest them so the plants can use them. Plus bone meal is so slow acting (months down the line) that while it can be quite beneficial for next years plants in the same soil it does little for this year's. The MG or better yet, a liquid organic works much better. Dave