'Purple Heart' was new to me September 2014 and was a bit of an impulse buy. It has grown well in its first full season in my garden but the background history on this hosta is a bit murky.
From a post by Don Rawson on a chat list, <br>
"According to a September 2010 posting on the Hosta Hybridizer's webpage at
http://www.hostahybridizers.co..., Dan Heims gave the following vague description of the background of 'Purple Heart': "Our plants are a 10 year culmination of crosses that started with an amazing group of Hosta that I brought back from Japan. A particularly black-marked H. rupifraga started it, then select backcross, select, select. Gary Gossett was our Hosta breeder back then. I heard rumors of yellow-flowered and red-flowered Hosta when I was in Japan, but never saw them."
The patent for 'Purple Heart' gives this statement regarding the background: "The plant is the culmination of a breeding program for red petiole and leaf base Hosta. It was bred in Canby, Oreg. using unpatented proprietary parents. The exact parents are unknown."
I have some very tiny (just germinated) seedlings from 'Purple Heart' that are already showing signs of nice red petioles.
Please feel free to share your pictures of this hosta.
July 3
Aug. 2
Aug. 31 - flowers
Aug. 31 - notice that the flower scape was so long I couldn't get it in the picture.
Sept 21 - the seed pods were so heavy I needed to stake the scape. But it held up well to the end of September.