Hykue, I've often been able to save young hostas with mushy eyes, though if the rot has travelled too far down it's toast. Carefully scrape off all this soft and rotted material down to sound tissue and leave this stub sticking up just slightly above the soil to be exposed to the air, though don't let the hot sun be beating down upon it, or it just might all completely shrivel up ... you can also pot the plant up to better tend it. In about three weeks or so, you should then be seeing small new shouts developing.

Terry

I laughed when I saw the title of your post. Over on the hosta forum, they call them 'eyes', but to me I agree with you and call them 'noses'. I think they're poking out their noses, checking on the weather and seeing if it's safe to pop out, lol.
Most of mine are starting to poke up, but some are always slower than others. I also planted some in the fall and am anxious to see how they do.

Ooooh. You guys give me hope.

I buried, pot and all, my very first hosta last fall, and just dug it up yesterday. There's nothing. Today, I'm going to poke around to see if I can find any noses, eyes, or maybe even ears! =:)

Excellent. Thanks for the tip, Terry, I'll get out there and poke Black Hills less delicately tomorrow, and see if I can find some solid tissue. You made a typo that makes me cheery. You called them "shouts" instead of shoots. So maybe they're mouths instead of noses? I could remember that they were named after some facial feature or other, and they certainly look more like noses than like eyes. Only Mr. Potato Head has such buggy eyes as that, and it's because he's a potato . . . maybe I should call them noses on potatoes too?

Nutsaboutflowers, there is certainly hope. I don't know if my "Invincible" was planted too deep or what, but I had to clear away a lot of soil before I found any noses at all. They weren't poking up on their own, but they were there after some gentle soil-clearing. Good luck!

Thanks for sharing in my excitement.

Julie