I'm so sorry. I'm glad no one was hurt but I know how sad I felt when this happened to me. We look forward to seeing our gardens all winter then it gets ruined...very depressing. Unless you're ok with them being smaller next year, I would leave all the leaves as is, until they turn brown. The one hosta I cut back as a test took forever to send up new leaves that season, and when it did they were pitiful...not worth it at all.

go find a nursery that didn't get hailed on and buy yourself a couple of new, pretty hosta. That helped me a bit, to have something not wrecked to look at.

I'm sorry to hear about your garden, but very glad to hear your house wasn't damaged. And coll's advice is good - go buy yourself a few pretty new ones for this year.

I was in st. louis yesterday driving home from Swan Lake, the ballet, and boy was it a terrible storm. We missed the hail thankfully. We experienced a bad hail storm here a couple of years ago, yes it sucks, yes they look bad for a while, yes they will recover. Be thankful that more damage wasn't done to structures and the such.
There is a good thread on here about how to deal with hail damage. I didn't trim much of the leaves on mine unless they were extremely tattered.
Give them a nice dose of compost tea or weak seaweed solution and be kind to them this summer. They will thank you next year.

I'm so sorry to hear about the storm destroying your hostas.
It's a sickening feeling isn't it. They'll come back, but won't be pretty this year. Try try again!!!

Thanks everyone. I feel like I jinxed them by showing them off to everyone. This was the third leap year and they were bountiful. I even tore down the wood around one garden bed and built a new retaining wall for it. Well I am lucky noone was hurt and house is okay. I will definitely find thread on how to deal with the hail damage. I went outside and just cut around the leaves that were practically hanging off by a thread. I just purchased Sluggo. Wont be needing that.

I feel your pain. We had two hailstorms last spring. The hail wasn't as big as yours, but everything was really ugly. I didn't cut anything back, just lived with it. Seems that my Sum and Substance was the ugliest hosta last year when we were disscussing ugly hosta. This year, it's more beautiful and larger than ever before. I would take Coll's advice and get a couple of new ones to pamper and enjoy this summer. This too, shall pass.

Bkay

S&S midsummer last summer
{{gwi:951281}}

S&S a couple of weeks ago after a small hailstorm with just a couple of "hosta hickies"
{{gwi:955880}}

Oh, I remember this happening to me 2 years ago! My S&S took the worst beating and I have many of them. I'm so sorry. I feel your pain.

I know the way you are thinking about having jinxed your garden by being proud of it. If that is the sacrifice to keep your home and family safe, then you can live with that. Do the shopping for enough new plants to have some eye candy until the others recover.

So sorry about your hostas, Valtorrez! We had some hail here a few weeks ago, and I was outside right after, checking the damage. Fortunately, we had enough canopy filled in that they were shielded from the worst of it. Hope you have a better year next year!!
Karen

I 2nd the advice from coll_123...go out and buy some new ones. :-)

If you're near enough to the IL side of the metro area, message me and I'll let you know about a hosta sale that is going on this weekend near Collinsville.
(Didn't want to post it publicly because I didn't want it to be seen as "advertising".)