Hosta Blue Diamond medium

‘Blue Diamond’ forms a medium-large mound of intensely blue foliage with good substance. One of the largest of Eric Smith’s Tardianas. Grows 18” tall and 36” wide. Lavender flowers on 20” scapes in summer.

What’s a Tardiana?

Eric Smith (1917-1986) was a plantsman and hosta hybridizer from Dorset, England. In the summer of 1961, he took advantage of a fluke occurrence when a plant of Hosta sieboldiana ‘Elegans’ flowered unusually late in the season so he could use its pollen to fertilize the flowers of an H. ‘Tardiflora’ plant. He developed the original cross into a whole series of smaller, very colorful, blue-green plants called the “Tardiana” group.

Smith did not register any of the 34 Tardiana hostas, but Paul Aden, Alex Summers, Peter Ruh, and the British Hosta and Hemerocallis Society did so starting in the 1970s. In addition to the word “Blue”, many of the cultivars start with the words, “Dorset” or “Hadspen”. In 1982, Eric Smith was awarded an Honorary Lifetime Membership in The American Hosta Society. (This information provided by The Hosta Helper at plantsgalore.com.)