Are there any Hearts that have "normal" or even PL foliage?

[Greatgardens]

I've grown several Hearts, but they have all had sparse ("wispy") foliage.

Any dwarf Hearts the have normal foliage? It would probably be rugose for dwarfs.

[MissS]

There are hearts with normal foliage and there are PL hearts too. Bleeding Heart has PL foliage. If I'm recalling correctly Cherokee Purple and Curtis Cheek did not have wispy foliage. Most hearts do have wispy foliage but certainly not all of them.

[karstopography]

I’m under the impression hearts aren’t well adapted for lower latitudes spots so I have mostly avoided growing any. I think Amish Paste is the only heart tomato I have grown and it did have the wispy foliage. Pineapple produces heart shaped tomatoes at times, but the foliage is anything but wispy.

[Whwoz]

@KarenO has breed a line of potato leaf hearts, Midnight Sun, Tundra and two or three others

[Paulf]

Knowing that I have grown a pile of hearts I was going to try and answer with a comprehensive list of non-whispy leaved varieties. After my list was twenty or more long the decision was made to view the best list of tomatoes on the web. Go to tatianas tomatobase and under the tomato heading there is a section to find types of tomatoes. Under the heart shaped listing is a list 200 or so hearts. About 2/3 are considered whispy regular leafed. There are a number of potato leaf varieties as well. Of that list about 1/3 or more may be difficult to find other than in trades, but like I have said,"There is not a heart I didn't love." Growing hearts is like a subset of heirlooms/OPs; once begun you will be hooked.

[tyrupp]

What ae your to five?

[Paulf]

Top five? No such thing. Top fifteen maybe: Bulgarian Heart, Butter and Bull Heart, Canadian Heart, Coeur De Valours, Eagle's Beak, Fish Lake Oxheart, Hungarian Heart, Joe's Pink Oxheart, Koral Londona, Ludmilla's Pink Heart, Nicky Crain, Oleyar's German, Sylvan Game, Tsar Kolokol, Zore's Big Red.

Not all are exceptional every time but often enough to be my "go to" varieties.

[Tormato]

Knowing that I have grown a pile of hearts I was going to try and answer with a comprehensive list of non-whispy leaved varieties. After my list was twenty or more long the decision was made to view the best list of tomatoes on the web. Go to tatianas tomatobase and under the tomato heading there is a section to find types of tomatoes. Under the heart shaped listing is a list 200 or so hearts. About 2/3 are considered whispy regular leafed. There are a number of potato leaf varieties as well. Of that list about 1/3 or more may be difficult to find other than in trades, but like I have said,"There is not a heart I didn't love." Growing hearts is like a subset of heirlooms/OPs; once begun you will be hooked.

I didn't have the heart to release Wretched Heart.

[Shule]

PL tomatoes can have the wispy trait. However, when PL tomatoes have the wispy trait they tend to look floppy rather than wispy. Taiga is an example.

EDIT: To clarify, I mean the leaves are still big and broad, without being particularly sparse, but the leaves (not particularly the stems) are floppy. When I say they have the wispy trait, I don't actually mean they're wispy. I mean, that's the equivalent of wispy in PL tomatoes, as far as I understand it (and I'm not claiming my understanding is definitively correct).

[Shule]

I don't know any oxhearts offhand without the wispy trait, but I do know non-oxhearts with it.

[Tormato]

What is the definition(s) of wispy?

Sparse? Droopy? Narrow? Dissected? Other?

Unfortunately, I do not write down precise descriptions of the plants of tomato varieties, other than for the tomatoes. I do remember a few PL heart varieties, HESHPOLE and Zore's Big Red, that (in my garden) have had exceptionally sparse (few) branches and leaves, along with branches being droopy. But, I wouldn't call any of the leaves as being narrow or dissected.

There are a few RL heart varieties that, in my garden, appear much like normal RL plants of other tomato types, Dotson's Lebanese Oxheart being the only one that I currently recall. I do remember that these normal looking RL plants often produce a mix of heart and some beefsteak (oblate) tomatoes on the same plant.

This thread is a good reminder for me to grow out the experimental PL hearts in my collection, that have been collecting dust.

[Shule]

@Tormato
See my edit in post #9.

[Gardadore]

While I was organizing a list in my head I thought of Midnight Sun but wasn’t sure how to describe it. Someone used the word “droopy” which fits it perfectly. I find most of my hearts, even the potato leaf tend more to a droopy side as opposed to whispy but Midnight Sun (an absolute favorite) always looks like it’s about to keel over! Yet it produces wonderful tomatoes!