Variegated Plants Reverting
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Doug says - thanks for the kind words about the newsletter. What we're talking about here is a simple plant process known as "reversion". Some variegated plants aren't totally stable and will throw the odd green leaf here and there.
These green leaves have more chlorophyll and are more energy efficient than the colored leaves so they then produce more of their kind.
A plant that throws a single green shoot will find more and more of the green and less and less of the variegated unless the straight green leaves are removed. I have a variegated daylily that gets a spring "pruning" every year for this reason but I've pruned out leaves from variegated maples (and you get those out early or the entire tree will quickly be overpowered by the green sections) as well as had tons of Hosta revert.
Another thing that happens in reversion is that sometimes a plant will revert when it is propagated. Brunnera 'variegata' is the worst for this. You start with a variegated plant and divide it - both halves then revert back to green and you have no variegated plant at all. :-(
And once a plant reverts, it won't produce more variegated leaves.
The deal here is to remove the green leaves from any plant as soon as you see them.
Why they revert? Plants love to bug gardeners- it's that simple.
Click here if you have a question about variegated plants
