On 9/11 of 2017, I acquired noted a mini-hosta cultivar called ‘Pandora's Box’; and I'm pleased to note that as soon as I saw the name, I recognized it correctly, even three years later.[1] I know this because I happened to write it down in my todo list.[2]
watercolour on 9x12" paper, folded in quarters to make a notecard. 09sep2020; photographed LumixDMC-LX100/2020LX100/20200910LX 1/200sec, EV +0.3, ISO 200 f1.7; gimp tools unified transform, crop & levels applied.
However, it's very slow growing, and even now, three years later, I have only 4 little plants; so I therefore removed the flower spike the most robust of them produced this year, making the happy discovery that the inside of the flower has these delicate purple stripes, which I planned to paint. Of course, by the time I'd gotten to it, the flowers had wilted to the point that the insides of the blooms were difficult to see.
But I'm still quite happy with this painting. Even though I goofed on the leaves, which I painted entirely from memory, because as the sharp eyed hosta aficionados amongst you will have spotted, I reversed the white and green parts.
[1]That is, I did an image search on mini-hostas, and recognized the name. Then I went trawling through old to-do lists, searching by its name. That gave me an approximate date, which I cross-referenced on my financial program. All very awkward, but the easier methods would mean consigning even more of my privacy to google than I have already...
[2]And going through gnucash, found the sale. The nursery in question was one I visited while hanging out with my bestie at her folks’ vacation cabin—a dream of ours for many years, that we only got to do...twice? In any event, this plant, along with the rough dogwood saplings I dug up from the property and brought home, are mementos of that happier time. Can't say whether the heuchera I purchased at the same time survived; and the bracken ferns definitely didn't make it.
Unless otherwise noted, text, image and objects depicted therein copyright 1996--present sylvus tarn.
