I have christened them Hosta 'Marn-Ra'.

Whenever new, exotic hostas come on the market they are insanely expensive because hostas do not come true from seed. New exotic hostas are often an accident, cross-pollination between two species, creating a hybrid with some new feature�extra wrinkly leaves, or leaves that are curly, or leaves that are particularly shiny and have bright yellow on them.

I know. Coveting a plant because there is something odd about its leaves is completely insane. That said, I have done some serious coveting of hostas in my lifetime. I leave you to decide what that says about my mental health.

For the 25 or so years I have been growing hosta, I have allowed all my hosta to go to seed in the hopes that I might grow something unexpected, create my very own hybrid. And for the 25 or so years I have been doing this, it has netted me exactly zero hosta seedlings.

Zero.

Fine.

Well, three years ago I mixed together some 'Frances Williams' hosta with 'Big Daddy' hosta because both have extremely large leaves with a bluish cast to them�Big Daddy has more texture and Frances Williams has a kind of yellowish edge to her leaves, so the contrast between the two of them was particularly pleasing to me.

And apparently they had a hubba hubba moment because last year I noticed these tiny little weeds growing under them that didn't look like any weed I knew. I decided to leave them for a while and see what they turned out to be and this year I am certain they are hostas.

Tiny perfect baby hostas.

Which means I now have my own hybrid hosta, a cross between 'Frances Williams' and 'Big Daddy'.

Hosta 'Marn-Ra'.

Right now my largest Hosta 'Marn-Ra' are no bigger than a loonie, the Canadian dollar coin, and most of them are smaller than a dime. I have transplanted 120 of them to a small holding bed in the sun and left the rest under their parents in case it turns out they are not sun tolerant.

(While many hostas take perfectly well to the sun, 'Frances Williams' is a delicate blossom and her leaves burn in the sun. She much prefers dappled light or full shade.)

Shut up. It is not stupid to talk about a plant as if it was a person.

Even at this extremely early stage I can see that hosta 'Marn-Ra' has inherited its father's strongly textured leaves. It looks as if it will have a bluish tone to its leaves, as both parents do, but so far there's no sign of 'Frances Williams' yellow. It will be interesting to see if hosta 'Marn-Ra' turns out to be of the Warrior Princess school, a big, muscular hosta like her father (who can produce leaves the size of rhubarb leaves), or if she takes after her mother and is more of a medium-sized hosta.

It has taken two years for these wee baby hosta to grow to the size of a loonie. If things continue at this pace, they probably won't be full grown for five or six years. Which means right about the time I turn 60 I will get a real sense of what my first and only hosta off-spring has grown up to be.

Yep, I waited about 25 years to get my first hosta seedlings and I have another five or six years to go until I see how they turned out.

Gardening takes delayed gratification to whole new heights, eh?

--Marn

P.S.-- Cabin-Boy and his rottie Big Bertha are running the Furry 5K. Want to donate to a worthy cause?

Mileage on the Marnometer: 637.39 miles. Half way there. Oh, man, please let this be over