Cross Pollination of Flowers

• By the natural order of nature, hostas will cross-pollinate between themselves, exchanging characteristics at random. This process happens when bees and other insects travel from one flower to another carrying the grains of pollen. If there is only one type of green hosta growing in the vicinity, the seedlings will not reproduce different plants. If there are several varieties within close proximity, the original mother plant stays the same, year after year, while any seeds that germinate will probably carry different traits.
  
  

Selective Choices

• If you see a plant that has a characteristic that you like, you can breed it with another by hand pollination. Once the seeds form, you plant them and do the process again, but only with the plants that came up with the characteristics that you are trying to reproduce. Although it takes time, this is how breeders produce plants with specific characteristics. Some general rules are green plants produce solid green offspring; the variegation of a leaf comes from the mother plant and most of the offspring will be variegated; blue or gold-leafed plants produce a mixture of green, blue, gold or variegated offspring; hostas with speckled white centers produce the same-colored offspring.
  
  

Saving Seeds

• Watch the pods on your hosta plants after the flowers fade away. After about 30 days you can expect to see the pod changing from a green color to a light brown and then even darker. Once the pods break open, the seeds quickly fall to the ground, so be careful not to wait too long. Storing the seeds without moisture is important, so wrap them in a paper envelope labeled with the type of seed, the two parents and the date.
  
  

Planting Seeds

• Hostas seeds do not need light to germinate. They need temperatures of around 60 degrees Fahrenheit for good germination along with a sterile but moist planting medium. Since most garden soils are alive with microbial activity, use a commercial planting soil for starting the seedlings and keep the soil damp. Records are important when hybridizing hostas at every stage to keep accurate accounts of your experiments.