There is some stuff going around on Facebook about these red and blue multicolored hostas. It’s something that we have to bring up and talk about today, because we’ve already been asked about them a dozen or more times. These crazy purple colors, they’re not real and you can tell that it’s been Photoshopped or AI generated. I’ve talked to multiple growers just to make sure that there wasn’t something new that we had missed, and it is 100% a scam. These people are being taken advantage of. I’ve looked at the comments on a lot of these sites and they’re saying ‘oh, they’re so beautiful, where do I get the seeds?’ There’s nobody refuting the fact that these things aren’t real.

You never want to buy a hosta from a seed anyway. To be honest, it would just take forever to grow, if it does at all. Usually, when you see just the seeds being sold, it’s definitely a scam. If you look at the comments, they respond to people, so they actually seem like they’re a legit company. They say there’s between 80 and 500 seeds in a packet. First of all, nobody is going to ship seeds out between 80 and 500. They’re going to have a rough count, roughly 100 seeds, not 80 to 500. It doesn’t even make common sense. More and more people are believing that they are real, but they are not.

I saw a new one yesterday, a blue sunflower. I have not researched that one, but if it’s new, it’s not something that any of us have ever heard of. And you can look at it and you know that it’s Photoshop. If something like that existed, we would be all over it, because it is cool. It is unique, it is different, but it’s not real. We would be talking about it if it was! We’re the first to break the news of all the new stuff.

Speaking of cool new things, we have a brand-new redbud called Hearts A’Fire. The new growth actually comes out almost a fire engine red, like instead of a purple. It hardens off to more of a green color, but then in the middle of summer, you get that flush of red again with that green backdrop. The hybridization in redbuds in the last five to seven years has just been phenomenal. There used to be four main varieties, now we carry 32 different species of redbud. There are some incredible foliage colors, if you took a picture of them 10 years ago, I’d think that it was Photoshop. This actually is real, and we have them here on the property where you can check them out.

Another really cool new redbud is called Flamethrower. The new growth comes out a purplish red color. And then it hardens up to a chartreuse-orange color, and in the middle of summer, it flushes that second growth. You end up having this gorgeous bright yellow backdrop with this purple new growth on it. It’s really cool looking. And you know what? If you aren’t sure if a plant is real, you can come and ask somebody. Take a screenshot of it, bring it into the nursery. There are new things that come out, from the grower or the patent holder, and occasionally things will get out in front of us that we don’t know about it, but we’ll do the research. We’ll let you know, or we’ve already done the research, and we can educate you about what is and what is not.

Keep an eye out and don’t believe everything you see on the internet! If in doubt, come in and talk to our staff. Maybe pick up a new redbud!

Questions? Email us at [email protected] or call one of our two locations: Portage (330-499-0101) or Everhard (330-492-1243).