An
article titled The Hosta Legacy of the Late David
Stone appeared in the 1985 issue of what was then
called The American
Hosta Society Bulletin. The article was authored by
Stone's former partners in the Piedmont Gardens nursery
in Waterbury, Connecticut,
F. Henry Payne and
Philip R. Payne.
An introductory note by
the Bulletin editors read, "David
M. Stone (1919-1978) of Wolcott, Connecticut, was
internationally famous for his knowledge of lily
hybridizing and giving the garden world the well-known
'Connecticut Yankee' and 'Nutmegger' lilies, forerunners
of the famous Lillium "Connecticut Hybrid"
strain...David Stone was very active in hosta
hybridizing and has left the hosta world a considerable
legacy. Here is an account by the Payne brothers of
Piedmont Gardens."
Excerpts from the Paynes'
article follow: [Note: Mr PGC's comments appear in
brackets]
'Wolcott'
"An inventory of David's
hostas should start with the unusual giant-leafed
variety which he called 'Stone's Fantasy' but which was
registered in 1982 as H. 'Wolcott',
the town where Stone had lived. This has frequently won
"largest leaf" award at shows of
The
American Hosta Society National Conventions. These
leaves are not only colossal in size, they are also
uniquely variegated.
Emerging a light shade of
green, the leaves of H. 'Wolcott' show areas of dark
green blotches which created an attractive affect
similar to caladium. The clump grows to tremendous size,
with the leaves held at a height of 2 1/2 feet. We think
David selected this outstanding hosta from his series of
crosses of
H.
sieboldiana x H. fortunei 'Albo-picta'
(also known as H. fortunei 'Viridimarginata'
and 'Aureo-maculata').
By mid-summer, 'Wolcott',
loses its mottled variegation and blends into a uniform
shade of medium green, contributing an excellent
landscape effect for the rest of the season. In the
early season, however, it's a knockout! The plant has
pale whitish flowers on racemes similar to
H.
tokudama and is an early mid-season bloomer."
[Note: Name changes since
this article was written include H. 'Tokudama',
H. 'Fortunei Albopicta', H. 'Sieboldiana'
and H. 'Fortunei Viridi-marginata' is now H.
'Crispula'.]
David Stone Mediums
"The next group is of a
small-medium size that we call "Stone's Medium Series."
It is the result of his efforts to originate a scaled
down version of the golden-edged H. sieboldiana,
'Frances
Williams'.
[Note: We were unaware that
the Paynes had used this term for these plants so we
have been using the moniker David Stones Mediums (DSM)
as used later by
Peter Ruh in
The Hosta Journal and by
Mark Zilis in
The Hostapedia (2009).]
David encountered the
high-shade-grown 'Frances Williams' and realized that
older plants can get lush and huge. He decided the plant
would be even more of a garden asset if it were scaled
down to 40% of the original clone size. He called the
seedlings resulting from this effort his "SAM" (an
acronym for H. siboldiana 'Aureo-marginata')
strain.
We learned of his
breeding objectives for his beautifully-bordered strain
from one of our customers. This information fortuitously
provided the answer to our problem of trying to explain
why David's golden-edged sieboldiana seedlings
obstinately refused to reach appropriate size for us,
despite the special feeding program with which we had
pampered the group.
We do not know and cannot
hazard a guess at the parents of this strain other than
that H. 'Frances Williams' was used. His gene
pool here is especially valuable because of reports
circulating in The American Hosta Society that 'Frances
Williams' seeds give all-green or only an occasional
all-gold result, but almost never produce a marginata
characteristic.
We have selected the best
hosta from this strain and named it "Stones Medium #5."
Everyone who sees this plant in our display garden tries
to buy it, but it is in very short supply. It sprouts
early with a medium green spade-shaped leaf,
fastidiously bordered with a half-inch margin of gold.
The margin is so regular that it appears painted on. It
reaches a maximum height of 18 inches and is only a
moderate increaser. We are growing other plants from
this series in our trial garden and may decide to
introduce other plants from this strain at a future
date.
[Note: #5 was later renamed 'Sunnybrook'.
and many of the others were subsequently named by
Peter
Ruh.]
David Stone Miniatures
When David sold us large
numbers of his seedling miniatures in 1972, we realized
that many of these hostas were far better than many on
the market at that time. David had been crossing the
smaller species for years in an attempt to achieve
small, vigorous growing marginatas with green,
yellow, gold or white borders in all widths. We regarded
many seedlings from this strain as distinctive and
segregated them for evaluation. We labeled this series
"David Stone Miniatures". So far we have named five
individual plants from this series. The first two of the
following five "David Stone Miniatures" are exceptional.
The other three are very nice and worthy of growing.
We named H. 'Carrie
Ann' in 1979... Reaching only four to five inches in
height, it remains fully miniature, with dense growth.
Its leaves are 4 1/2 to 5 inches long, about 3/4 inch in
width, and are a uniform medium green center with a very
neat 1/4 inch margin of creamy white. The flower stem is
10 inches tall with white flowers, which are pendant. It
seems to be a vigorous plant.
We also selected a
yellow-leafed white-margined miniature and called it
H. 'Little
Ann'. Many visitors have suggested that it resembles
the well-known H. 'Anne
Arett' but 'Little Ann' blooms at a different time
and differs in hue. Its blossom is eight inches tall,
with lavender flowers. Unfortunately it is slow to
increase. It is very, very popular.
H. 'Emerald
Gem' was named in 1979. It is accustomed to making a
good small clump very rapidly, showing its deep green
leaves to good advantage. Its flower stalk reaches nine
inches and it has lavender flowers.
H. 'Excalibur'
was named in 1979. It is a delightful miniature which
would be useful in the attempt to find a variegated
liriope substitute. Its leaf pedicel is 5 1/4 inches,
and this joins 4 3/4 inch long sword-like leaf which is
3/4 inch at its widest. The green center is margined
with a very regular white edge. A good increaser, this
plant has lavender flowers.
H. 'Verdi
Valentine', named in 1979, has distinctive
heart-shaped leaves measuring 2 1/2 x 1 1/2,
horizontally at the ends of 3 1/2 inch stems. |