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The Story of Buffalo Bill... It may looks like I am about to tell you the story of the legendary American adventurer and legend of the Wild West, William Frederick Cody, nicknamed „Buffalo Bill“. This man was a soldier (in the American Civil War), a bison hunter (he supplied bison meat to workers, working on the construction of the Kansas railroad), and a showman. He founded Buffalo Bill's Wild West in 1883, taking his large company on tours in the United States and, beginning in 1887, in Great Britain and continental Europe. But I don't want to discuss this famous and well-known figures of the American Old West. I'm only mentiened him, because his name was the inspiration for us, when named one of our most known hosta culivar...

Sometime around 2003-2004, we visited a perennial plant producer in Southern Poland. Among other hosta, we bought about 20 hostas Great Expectations. This cultivar is characterized by having a creamy yellow center and a green border. Along with the correctly colored plants, the seller also offer us several plants, that were incorrectly colored - they were solid blue-green. He told us, that if we want, he can sell these few plants (that were just blue-green) at a very low price...

At home, we noticed, that blue-green colored plants have a weak variegation. We considered its color as ungly and offered these not true to cultivar coloured plants at very low price in our garden store. Despite the low price, the blue-green plants, of which there were about 5-6, were sold badly. After a season, there was still left one plant in the store. Finaly we decided to withdraw it from sale, take it home and plant it in our garden under an apple tree.
The hosta did well there, it quickly grew and soon become a nice, big plant. The streaking apperance on the leaves was quite interesting, especially in the spring, which was noticed by several visitors of our garden. It become a really eyecatcher!

Around 2010-2012, we found an iformation about variegated hostas on the Internet. Such cultivars were very rare, expensive and not easy to find on the market at that time. We suddnely realized, that one of such variegated hostas is also growing in our garden... So we started to thing to register this hosta as a new cultivar... it happened in 2014. We registered hosta Buffalo Bill in the American Hosta Society. The word „Buffalo“ came from the English translation of our last name "Zúbrik". And first phrase, that we thought about with the word „Buffalo“ was „Buffalo Bill“. We knew this person very well as we read many stories about it as we were childs. And so the hosta Buffalo Bill has arrise...

Hosta Buffalo Bill is a medium to large perennial. After sprouting, its leaves have a fresh green color and a striking, ochre-yellow variegation. Later in the season, the variegation is less noticeable and less contrasting. It can even disappear completely at the end of August. It blooms in the middle of the season with light lavender to almost white flowers. They are sterile and rarely form capsules. We sowed the seeds several times, however they never germinated...

Until now, only about 5-6 plants left our garden. If you are lucky enough to own this cultivar, we believe it will bring you as much joy as it does us all season long.

Hosta Buffalo Bill OS is still growing on the original place under the apple tree in our garden (Photo: D. Zúbriková)

 Hosta Buffalo Bill Interesting - fresh spring collor. (Photo: D. Zúbriková)

 Big leaves of hosta Buffalo Bill. (Photo: D. Zúbriková)

End of the season are streaks less contrasting. (Photo: D. Zúbriková)

 Hosta Buffalo Bill in the pot. (Photo: V. Mirka)

Small plants ready for sale. (Photo: D. Zúbriková)

Hosta Buffalo Bill showing its full beauty. (Photo: D. Zúbriková)

Time to time is hosta Buffalo Bill available in our eshop, so please leave your address here, to be notified when again available. (Photo: D. Zúbriková)

© This text and photos are protected by intellectual property rights under the Law no. 618/2003 Coll. (the Copyright Act).