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“Originators” are those people or organizations who hybridized hostas or discovered new sports. As we used the term, it also includes those who registered cultivars with the Hosta Registrar. In most situations this is one person or entity but there are many cases where people co-originated new hostas or registered plants with or on behalf of others. The numbers listed under the heading "Cultivars" in the tables in this section represent a plant for which the person or organization has been mentioned as originator or registrant for that hosta.

The numbers in parenthesis ( ) represent the number of originators from each state or country.

By far, most introductions of new hosta cultivars come from the United States. Of the 1,022 originators in our database, 723 or about 71% come from 37 U.S. States.

Listed below are the states where at least one of these originators is located. Click on a state name to see a list of the names of the originators and the numbers of cultivars with which they are associated. Ohio is the number one state with 83 originators followed by Michigan with 72, Minnesota with 65 and Iowa with 60.
 
  1. Alabama (2)
  2. Arkansas (1)
  3. California (3)
  4. Connecticut (16)
  5. Delaware (11)
  6. Florida (1)
  7. Georgia (19)
  8. Illinois (50)
  9. Indiana (44)
  10. Iowa (60)
  11. Kansas (3)
  12. Kentucky (1)
  1. Maine (6)
  2. Maryland (7)
  3. Massachusetts (35)
  4. Michigan (72)
  5. Minnesota (65)
  6. Mississippi (1)
  7. Missouri (13)
  8. Montana (1)
  9. Nebraska (12)
  10. New Hampshire (7)
  11. New Jersey (11)
  12. New York (38)
  1. North Carolina (24)
  2. Ohio (83)
  3. Oklahoma (1)
  4. Oregon (22)
  5. Pennsylvania (19)
  6. Rhode Island (2)
  7. South Carolina (4)
  8. Tennessee (4)
  9. Utah (1)
  10. Vermont (7)
  11. Virginia (15)
  12. Washington (13)
  13. Wisconsin (49)
 

Unknown State/Country (28)

 

 
We are missing a state, country or first name listing for about 100 originators. Click Here to see a list of these originators and if you can help us with this information, please send us an EMAIL. Thanks!

Although the U.S. leads the way in introduction of new hosta cultivars, we have 274 originators from 20 other countries included in The Hosta Helper Database. They represent about 26% of the originators in our collection. There are 28 originators with an unknown state or country which represents the remaining 3%.

England has the most originators of this group with 64 people having introduced at least one cultivar. Close behind is the native land of most Hosta species, Japan,  with 51 originators. Interest in hostas has been expanding and in recent years new plants have come from countries such as Australia, the Czech Republic, Finland, Northern Ireland, Sweden and even South Africa.
 
  1. Australia (1)
  2. Austria (2)
  3. Belgium (13)
  4. Canada (38)
  5. China (7)
  6. Czech Republic (1)
  7. Denmark (3)
  1. England (64)
  2. Finland (1)
  3. Germany (35)
  4. Japan (51)
  5. Netherlands (33)
  6. New Zealand (11)
  7. Northern Ireland (1)
  1. Poland (4)
  2. Slovak Republic (2)
  3. South Africa (1)
  4. South Korea (2)
  5. Sweden (2)
  6. Switzerland (2)

About 370 (37%) of the originators in our database have introduced only one cultivar. On the other end of the scale, 31 originators are associated with 5,690 cultivars. Of course, this does not represent that number of different hostas since some of these people have originated or registered many plants on behalf of or jointly with other people. It still represents a huge percentage of named hosta cultivars and an impressive influence on the world of hostas by this small group of people.

Around 1,280 hosta cultivars in our database have "Unknown" in the originator column. Please take a look at this list which is presented in alphabetical order and send us an EMAIL if you have information to help us have a complete set of information. Thanks!
 
100 or More 31
80 to 99 6
60 to 79 12
40 to 59 26
20 to 39 55
10 to 19 78
5 to 9 146
1 to 4 668
 

Total Originators =  1,022

  

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