An article titled The Hosta Legacy of the Late David Stone appeared in the 1985 issue of what was then called The American Hosta Society Bulletin. The article was authored by Stone's former partners in the Piedmont Gardens nursery in Waterbury, Connecticut, F. Henry Payne and Philip R. Payne.

An introductory note by the Bulletin editors read, "David M. Stone (1919-1978) of Wolcott, Connecticut, was internationally famous for his knowledge of lily hybridizing and giving the garden world the well-known 'Connecticut Yankee' and 'Nutmegger' lilies, forerunners of the famous Lillium "Connecticut Hybrid" strain...David Stone was very active in hosta hybridizing and has left the hosta world a considerable legacy. Here is an account by the Payne brothers of Piedmont Gardens."

Excerpts from the Paynes' article follow: [Note: Mr PGC's comments appear in brackets]

'Wolcott'

"An inventory of David's hostas should start with the unusual giant-leafed variety which he called 'Stone's Fantasy' but which was registered in 1982 as H. 'Wolcott', the town where Stone had lived. This has frequently won "largest leaf" award at shows of The American Hosta Society National Conventions. These leaves are not only colossal in size, they are also uniquely variegated.

Emerging a light shade of green, the leaves of H. 'Wolcott' show areas of dark green blotches which created an attractive affect similar to caladium. The clump grows to tremendous size, with the leaves held at a height of 2 1/2 feet. We think David selected this outstanding hosta from his series of crosses of H. sieboldiana x H. fortunei 'Albo-picta' (also known as H. fortunei 'Viridimarginata' and 'Aureo-maculata').

By mid-summer, 'Wolcott', loses its mottled variegation and blends into a uniform shade of medium green, contributing an excellent landscape effect for the rest of the season. In the early season, however, it's a knockout! The plant has pale whitish flowers on racemes similar to H. tokudama and is an early mid-season bloomer."

[Note: Name changes since this article was written include H. 'Tokudama', H. 'Fortunei Albopicta', H. 'Sieboldiana' and H. 'Fortunei Viridi-marginata' is now H. 'Crispula'.]

David Stone Mediums

"The next group is of a small-medium size that we call "Stone's Medium Series." It is the result of his efforts to originate a scaled down version of the golden-edged H. sieboldiana, 'Frances Williams'.

[Note: We were unaware that the Paynes had used this term for these plants so we have been using the moniker David Stones Mediums (DSM) as used later by Peter Ruh in The Hosta Journal and by Mark Zilis  in The Hostapedia (2009).]

David encountered the high-shade-grown 'Frances Williams' and realized that older plants can get lush and huge. He decided the plant would be even more of a garden asset if it were scaled down to 40% of the original clone size. He called the seedlings resulting from this effort his "SAM" (an acronym for H. siboldiana 'Aureo-marginata') strain.

We learned of his breeding objectives for his beautifully-bordered strain from one of our customers. This information fortuitously provided the answer to our problem of trying to explain why David's golden-edged sieboldiana seedlings obstinately refused to reach appropriate size for us, despite the special feeding program with which we had pampered the group.

We do not know and cannot hazard a guess at the parents of this strain other than that H. 'Frances Williams' was used. His gene pool here is especially valuable because of reports circulating in The American Hosta Society that 'Frances Williams' seeds give all-green or only an occasional all-gold result, but almost never produce a marginata characteristic.

We have selected the best hosta from this strain and named it "Stones Medium #5." Everyone who sees this plant in our display garden tries to buy it, but it is in very short supply. It sprouts early with a medium green spade-shaped leaf, fastidiously bordered with a half-inch margin of gold. The margin is so regular that it appears painted on. It reaches a maximum height of 18 inches and is only a moderate increaser. We are growing other plants from this series in our trial garden and may decide to introduce other plants from this strain at a future date.

[Note: #5 was later renamed 'Sunnybrook'. and many of the others were subsequently named by Peter Ruh.]

David Stone Miniatures

When David sold us large numbers of his seedling miniatures in 1972, we realized that many of these hostas were far better than many on the market at that time. David had been crossing the smaller species for years in an attempt to achieve small, vigorous growing marginatas with green, yellow, gold or white borders in all widths. We regarded many seedlings from this strain as distinctive and segregated them for evaluation. We labeled this series "David Stone Miniatures". So far we have named five individual plants from this series. The first two of the following five "David Stone Miniatures" are exceptional. The other three are very nice and worthy of growing.

We named H. 'Carrie Ann' in 1979... Reaching only four to five inches in height, it remains fully miniature, with dense growth. Its leaves are 4 1/2 to 5 inches long, about 3/4 inch in width, and are a uniform medium green center with a very neat 1/4 inch margin of creamy white. The flower stem is 10 inches tall with white flowers, which are pendant. It seems to be a vigorous plant.

We also selected a yellow-leafed white-margined miniature and called it H. 'Little Ann'. Many visitors have suggested that it resembles the well-known H. 'Anne Arett' but 'Little Ann' blooms at a different time and differs in hue. Its blossom is eight inches tall, with lavender flowers. Unfortunately it is slow to increase. It is very, very popular.

H. 'Emerald Gem' was named in 1979. It is accustomed to making a good small clump very rapidly, showing its deep green leaves to good advantage. Its flower stalk reaches nine inches and it has lavender flowers.

H. 'Excalibur' was named in 1979. It is a delightful miniature which would be useful in the attempt to find a variegated liriope substitute. Its leaf pedicel is 5 1/4 inches, and this joins 4 3/4 inch long sword-like leaf which is 3/4 inch at its widest. The green center is margined with a very regular white edge. A good increaser, this plant has lavender flowers.

H. 'Verdi Valentine', named in 1979, has distinctive heart-shaped leaves measuring 2 1/2 x 1 1/2, horizontally at the ends of 3 1/2 inch stems.