First... let's start with the official registration... the link from hippienono... Paul Aden registered it as the product of the cross of two of his numbered breeders. Evidence suggests that there were no such plants, so we have no idea where it came from. Then look at the size... registered as 12" wide by 8" high. If you look at old FB plants in gardens you will see lots of them in the 30-36" wide clumps. The height isn't too bad - it is a lower, flat growing plant compared with other hostas. The registration does indicate it is not fragrant. Yet the registrant (Aden) didn't indicate a different "nominant" so it would appear he named the plant FRAGRANT Bouquet and indicated is is not fragrant. Pretty odd! He gave the flowering period in New York as a range of time of 3 1/2 weeks. That usually indicates somebody really isn't willing to watch the plant for a couple of years and narrow the time down. He did get it right that its a white (sometimes whiteish... with some of the lavender chemicals present and fading to white) and an earlier rather than later bloomer. Not sure where Fine Girl's extensive description comes from... noting the location as the Enterprise Rent-a-car Flower Borders is fun! They got the size wrong, like the registration... and "showy" might be a stretch on the flowers, but that's in the eye of the beholder... So... we don't want to ever get into disagreements based on either unofficial or official plant descriptions. It is sad to see this kind of mistakes on old plants - Aden could have gone back and corrected obvious errors like the size of this plant. We'll see what happens to this registration after the two AHS committees get done reviewing the Aden registrations. Unfortunately, we're continuing to see such errors... even more of them. It is all about marketing. I waited to register Polish Prince until I'd grown it independent of its parent plant for four years. I observed its growth and made sure it would remain margined and interesting. On the other hand, if I'd have wanted to market it, I'd have offered it to some of the bigger companies and let them name it for marketing. The could have put it into tissue culture five years ago. Of course, they wouldn't have really known what an adult looks like. This is happening all the time. People get a neat seedling or sport and name it and throw it in tc. They register it based on "best guess." In spite of how easy it is, very few registrants go back and correct the registration. The only thing we can totally trust on the registration is the name. Oh, wait... lots of people getting what are probably the same sport in different locations are naming them, so names are even suspect. And who knows about the naming on all the Aden plants. So... I still encourage people to register hostas and to make them as accurate as possible. You'll often hear me referring to registrations. But we do have to use a grain of salt. One thing about Fragrant Blue is undeniable. Some people call it fragrant. Of those, most say "mildly fragrant." The majority of people say they cannot detect a fragrance from FB. No joke, folks... I've been testing people on this from numerous plants... (I only have two left)... and only a few folks have ever detected a fragrance. These plants are FB in every respect except for that. I grew them from a tc batch I got, I think, in 1996. Now, Brandy... I think you are one of the lucky ones. Yours is fragrant. And I even believe that there might be an "original" strain of FB that is fragrant and a much larger group of FB that came out of tc without fragrance. The only reason I wouldn't lable it FB... because it was originally labeled Blue Flame. The most likely scenario, as we've discussed before, is that an all blue plant snuck through the culling process along with with the rest of the Blue Flames. Every batch of BF tc will have a percentage of these all blue plants. In the old days, solid colored plants in the tissue culture of a variegated plant would be culled - thrown in the compost. But there are some plants that give high percentages... like 30%... of solid-colored plants. It has become common practice for the wholesalers to re-label them or rename them. Examples... when they tissue culture June, it is common practice to pull out the all blue ones and re-label them Halcyon. On the other hand, when Q&Z got a bunch of blues coming from tc of Paul's Glory, instead of labeling them with the parent's name - Perry's True Blue - they chose to give it a new name - Wheaton Blue. Following their lead, a lot of retailers started doing this as well. The nursery Brandy's friend got the "Blue Flame" from could have avoided the serious confusion by putting in a tag for Fragrant Blue. And I know its become common practice in home gardens. Lots of people say they never had to buy Halcyon because they pulled a blue piece off of their June - or First Frost or El Nino etc etc etc. - and relabeled it Halcyon. There is a good chance that plant is genetically identical to FB... making it FB. Unfortunately, without genetic testing, we are only guessing. So I won't label mine that way. It doesn't really matter WHAT we call our plants... until we share them with somebody else. I know I'm in a distinct minority... but I remain a purist, especially because I might be dividing and sharing/selling the plant. I HATE the idea of adding any confusion to what is already a wild naming environment for hostas.

I photocopied this from a book at least a year ago but I've never used it because none of my problems seemed to fit the rule. Maybe it will help you. "A proportion is a relationship between lengths that always stays constant no matter what the size. For example a 10 foot to 20 foot proportion is the same as a 2 foot to a 4 foot proportion. The proportion called the 'golden mean' is 1:1.6l8. The golden mean is also known by the Greek letter phi." The book goes on to say that if you follow this rule in designing your house then it will be spatially harmonious. I think this means you should find the ratio of your negative space to your cabinet height and compare it to the golden mean and if it's approximately the same then you'll be okay.

Carnosa and pubicalyx might be ok but not the rest. I am in zone 10, I have to cover some if it gets below 50.

I have 10' ceilings and 96" cabinets. I'm 5'9" and can't reach the top shelves but it bothers me not at all to bring out the aluminum 3-step ladder for the few times I need something (mostly holiday items) from those shelves. Luckily my 6'4" son-in-law loves to cook and does those holiday meals while being able to reach the top. There's not much else on those upper shelves other than wine glasses and some ice buckets; I just sold all of my china and crystal - so liberating !! I didn't want cabinets to the 10' ceiling because of the prohibitive extra cost, the look and also because of the Toll Brothers obligatory useless teensy kitchen windows that are 9.5' up on one wall. The discussion about using glass front cabinets in front of those windows, having to replace the trim around the windows, etc, lasted about 14 seconds. Nope. I insisted on having solid wood tops - 2 ginormous pieces - installed and stained to match because I didn't want to see the unfinished wood when I came down the stairs. Now I see giant dust bunnies and I've decided oh, who cares, lol. It's proven to be an excellent area for some serious art glass that I can't put "out" because of cat and grandchildren but if the house is ever on the market, the little bits of standard greenery will go up there instead. Long way of saying that, even being tall, I still use a stepladder but I think I've had 10' ceilings so many times that I'm used to it.