Jenny,

Welcome to the forum. Those look like some young plants. Have you put them in recently?

All that leaf litter that I see in the pictures is habitat for slugs and perhaps earwigs and cutworms. All of them will eat Hosta. Some of those holes (the little round ones) are definitely slug damage. The other more irregular holes look to me like worm damage.

I would use a product called Sluggo Plus (link below). That contains a molluscicide bait for the slugs and a naturally occurring bacterium called Spinosad that will kill earwigs, cutworms, pillbugs and sowbugs. But the most important thing will be to keep that area clean of leaves to take away the slug habitat.

That dormant oil that you have is a good product, but it won't bother the slugs at all. Make sure you read all the directions when applying any pesticide.

Steve

Here is a link that might be useful: Sluggo Plus

10% ammonia or vinegar.. will take care of slugs... i think there is a FAQ on such ...

ken

Thanks for all the info Steve and Ken!!

Steve - I actually planted all these last year around April (so April 2011) - for some reason they are so small...Some of my neighbors hostas are enormous!

I wasn't sure if it was because they were being eaten, or if they need something for the soil, or....something?

Taking care of the leaves today for sure! :)

If you spray the oil on the blue hostas you will turn them green.

Sandy

BTW ... you now have a number of potential vermin

unless your stuff is LABELED for use for such.. you should not use it ...

ken

Also spraying hort oil on plants in a drought, if you have the dry conditions a lot of us do, you'll injure the leaves worse than they already are.

Sandy

This problem was solved back in mid-May. Jenny knows not to use that oil on the problems she was having.

Steve

If you feel you must spray something, the same company (Bonide) makes "Captain Jacks Bug Brew" which is spray-able Spinosad that will stop the tiny chewing and sucking things. But then you still need a slug/snail killer too.

I sprayed some yesterday on some blue hosta leaves just to test to see if it removed the glaucous bloom or otherwise left any residue and today I cannot see any trace of it. Good stuff. I've been using it on tomatoes, parsley and basil too with very good results.

-Babka

i hate when old ones pop up .. and i forget to look at the OP's original date ...

ken

I hate it when that happens too. Not only did I miss the date, but I forgot to refresh my page sooner before I replied. Sorry.

-Babka

Sorry, my fault, it popped up on google and I just glanced at the date, saw the 12 and just thought I'd missed one. Didn't see the May part.

Sandy