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Hostadom, as I
like to call the hosta world, was introduced to Patricia Scolnik at the
1987
AHS National Convention in Wilmington, Delaware. She had been invited
to promote
her tissue culture lab, Breeze Hill Plant Lab, that she had opened out
of her
home in Kennett
Square,
Pennsylvania. She
was welcomed by a few
growers, like Van Wade and me, who were interested in
contracting with
her to produce hostas for them. That
was
the beginning of a long friendship between Patricia and me.
In the mid-90s,
Patricia’s husband got a job in the Raleigh-Durham area, and her family
and the
lab moved to Chapel Hill. Since she did not have any greenhouse space,
I agreed
to finish out her liners in two of the hoop houses at my nursery. It
was in one
of these hoop houses that I first saw the ‘Halcyon’ sport that was to
become
‘First Frost’. It was spectacular!! I knew that Patricia had produced a
great
hosta, and the rest is history.
Just
as an aside, in
the South we have a custom of naming craft beers after our best hostas,
believe
it or not. The Fullstream Brewery in Durham has a winter brew called
“First
Frost” but beware, just like the hosta, it is very robust; it has 10%
alcohol content. |
| I am so honored
to be given this award. When I was first told about it several months
ago, I
just couldn’t believe this little plant had come so far. I remembered
back to
its very first day in the test tube, among its plain blue relatives. |  | | My lab did have
a number of sports over the years. Some looked good for a while and
others not
so much, but I started thinking about how beautiful ‘June’ is, and even
that
morning, I had big hopes for it. I grew some on and then Bob took it
from
there. He has worked
tirelessly at introducing it to the hosta world and was the one that
gave it
its name. He asked me what characteristics I thought of when I was
growing it,
and I said, “Well, it’s really the last hosta to go down after the
frost
starts, and it looks good right up to that time.” He called me a few
days later
and said, “What do you think of ‘First Frost’ as a name for it?” and I
immediately
loved it. | | Patricia Scolnik with H. 'First Frost' | | |
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Last year when I
saw an entire bench of it at my local Home Depot in the tiny town I
live in, I
was stunned and realized for the first time, I think this lovely plant
will outlive me and be part of people’s beloved gardens for many, many years.
Thank
you all so much
for making this happen! |
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