Purple hosta is unlike anything you’ve seen before for a reason

Have you seen the gorgeous new brillant purple hosta? It’s unlike anything you’ve seen before, and gardeners are clamoring to get their hands on it.

It really is unlike anything you’ve seen before because it doesn’t exist, even though garden centers report that customers have shown up, with photos pulled up on their phones, asking for it.

The bright purple Hosta, along with many other too-good-to-be-true plants, are products of artificial intelligence, and they are designed to scam gardeners into spending money on something that doesn’t exist.

In the case of Hostas, which seem to be a common target of plant scammers, the unbelievable picture accompanies a listing on Amazon or other websites for 200 seeds for about $12. And don’t worry, you can have those seeds waiting at your door by 8 a.m. tomorrow, thanks to overnight shipping.

Don’t worry, there’s no need to rush the order, because you’re in for a long wait before you’ll find out that a purple hosta doesn’t exist.

That’s because Hostas grown from seed take about four years to reach maturity. And also because hostas don’t come true from seed, so even if the random, unlabeled seeds that show up do germinate, grow and turn out to be a hosta, they won’t be that purple hosta, or any other fun variety.

Many of the 630 people who left reviews on one such Amazon listing waited a long time to find this out, reporting that after months of growing them they were plain green Hostas, or, as evidenced by the photos left with some reviews, actually Agave plants.

AI-generated images of full garden spaces are also making the rounds of the internet. These can be much more difficult to differentiate from real photos and are probably less nefarious than photos used to scam people into buying something that doesn’t exist. Other than just being a little creepy, the danger in such images is that they can create a false sense of what is possible in a garden, where plants that would never grow together magically seem to.

Some gardeners might be astute at spotting fake plant photos, but AI is leading gardeners astray in other ways, and the results can be much worse than losing $12 on a pack of dud seeds.

The other day a friend told me she had sheared her spireas to the ground. And she did it because that’s what the AI-generated synopsis at the top of the Google search results told her to do.

For the record, shearing a spirea (Spiraea) to a few inches above the ground is rarely the right move (selectively pruning out the oldest stems and then doing a light shaping is preferred), and when it needs to be done, fall is not the time.

Fortunately, spireas are tough shrubs and there’s a good chance they will survive, but I don’t fault my friend for doing what Google told her to do.

If the spireas die, I suspect that my friend won’t shed too many tears as she replaces them with something she likes better.

I just hope she doesn’t tell me she’s getting bright purple Hostas instead.