"This hosta I bought last year in the spring as a very nice yellow hosta. It became green later on.
Its colour is light-green, not very nice now. Well, and from that light green spring ‘nothing’ from my friend, in mid-summer became a beautiful, sulphur-yellow eye-catcher in the flower bed..."

The attentive and experienced of you know that everything is okay. Yellow hostas change intensity their colour during the vegetation season - the shape of their yellow colour - because of their genetic equipment, but also because of the influence of external factors. I like yellow hostas because they can brighten up every dark corner of the garden.

Hosta Little Black Scape - lutescent.

When I founded my hosta collection a few years ago, I did not understand why there were mostly spring yellow in the garden shops. From the literature, I knew about very beautiful summer yellows so I asked gardener, friend of mine: “Hey Ondrej, why do you sell mostly spring yellow hostas, when the summer yellow hostas can decorate gardens much longer?” He replied: „That’s because people are interested in gardens mainly in the spring. People buy plant, replant and buy again... Well, shining yellow hosta? Everybody wants shining yellow hostas because they are eye-catching, attract attention, they are different! Light green hosta, which will be (maybe) yellow in summer? Nobody want to buy such one in the spring...“. Today I will share with you my observations and experience with yellow hostas..

Yellow hostas categories:
1/ ´VIRIDESCENT´ or ´greening´ I’m using name ´Spring yellow´
2/ ´LUTESCENT´ or ´yellowing´ I’m using name ´Summer yellow“
3/ ´YELLOW´ - hostas which change their colour only a little during the season and I’m not able to assign them to the frst two categories. Based on my many years of experience with
growing about 150 cultivars of yellow hostas..

4/ ´CHARTREUSE´ category, “green-yellow” or “yellow-green”. This category was added in 2003 by AHS (American Hosta Society). But
in a reality, some from hostas included in this category can be better labelled as ´VIRIDESCENT´.

The same characteristic - changes a yellow colour during the year has also a sports with a green border. For example:
Spring yellow– viridescent: Fire Island Paradise Island® (sport with green borderm) - Volcano Island® (tetraploid sport with a wide green border).
Summer yellow – lutescent: Sun Power Paradise Power® (sport with green border) - High Voltage® (tetraploid sport with a wide green border).

Hosta Bohemia Atlantis Sunrise - viridescent.

The green colour of plants is caused by a green pigment called chlorophyll, contained in cellular organelles called chloroplasts. In the chloroplasts progress the photosynthetic assimilation of green plants. The green photosynthetic
pigment chlorophyll absorbs sunlight and with this energy, produces, from simple inorganic compounds (carbon dioxide and water H₂O) to energy-rich organic compounds. At the same time, oxygen is released into the atmosphere.
This is how green plants makes all construction and storage substances. This substances are necessary to their life, grow and reproduction.

The colouring of hostas is genetically given. Yellow hostas have less chloroplasts and less chlorophyll in the cells than green hostas!

Hosta Dancing Queen - veridescent.

Yellowing (lutescence) of summer yellow ones and greening (viridiscence) of spring yellow ones causing by genes, which are temperature-sensitive with opposite colour effect.
In the spring yellow (viridescent) rising summer temperatures increasingly reduce the activity of the gene that inhibits chlorophyll. Hosta gradually produces more and more green chlorophyll, which is saved in the leaves and hosta became greener. With the summer yellow (lutescent) it is a opposite effect. Rising temperatures here is diminishing the production of chlorophyll and hostas are more yellow from June to the end of the season.

Genetics is just one of the factors. Other factors are length of direct sunlight on the plant, air temperature, watering, also the amount of accessible nitrogen in the substrate....

Hosta Lemey Lisa - viridescent.

Hosta Fire Island - viridescent.

Hosta Sun Power - lutescent.

Here are simple rules to help you reach the most yellow colour of your hostas. It depends on you, how you will manage these factors and do not damage your hostas, you should not wait one year to see them happy again…

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Do not be afraid to experiment with the placement of your hostas. A great advantage for this experiment are plants, which are in pots. You can easily manage light changing the pot place.
Move hostas to the shade if the sun is shining too much (starting sunburn) or to the place with more light if they grow in darker place.

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Too much sun in the spring - can easy burn the plants. Burning on young hosta leaves look like brown spots on the leaves and dry edges of leaves are not very nice. Leaves damaged by light, in summer months, will gradually fade and became completely
white. After that, complete tissue breakdown (necrosis) may occur.

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If a yellow hosta grows in deep shadow, plant tries to replace the missing light with increasing photosynthesis and creates more chlorophyll - yellow hosta became greener.
More nitrogen in the substrate also initiate chlorophyll formation in the leaves. I imagine it as some unhealthy overgrowth of the plant from excess food ...☺

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By right watering, we can also optimize the conditions of plant and eliminate the negative effects of sunburn.
Considering the above facts and influences, you should be prepared that your yellow hosta, will have a different shadow and intensity of yellow colour each year. Same conditions is impossible to make for hostas every year.

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If you ever will grow your own hosta from seeds, keep in mind that yellow plants will always have less chlorophyll (“solar collector”) and green and blue hostas with more of green chlorophyll in the leaves,
will overgrow them soon. Therefore, replant yellow plants (at the least year after sprouting), because after 2-3 years you will not able to fnd them - green and blue plants overgrow yellow ones..

Hosta Gilt Be Assotiation - viridescent but it stay yellow almost whole season.

Hosta Frisian Pride - viridescent - in summer on full sun.

Hosta Yellow Waves - viridescent.

Spring yellow- viridescent - exampels

 source: http://www.hostalists.org/hosta_list_virid.php

Summer yellow- lutescent- examples

http://www.hostalists.org/hosta_list_lut.php

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