On Sat. I'd had it. It looked like I had won the war on aphids and then I look and there is sooty mold all over my hosta. One NOID looked like it had ink bleeding and I was certain it had HVX. There were brown spots on my Orange Marmalade ( foliar nematodes I presumed,) and clearly Twilight was suffering from anthracnose. There was no way I was going to plant my new Wheee, Sagae, and Regal Splendor in any of those moldy virus infected gardens!!! This morning I checked GWF and read Myrle's threads and realized that somewhere along the way I'd lost my reason for gardening, it's fun. I'd become a paranoid, psycho, OCD maniac. It was time to take action. I was either going to throw all my hosta on the driveway, or go visit Mr. Peter Ruh. I decided to go see Mr. Ruh and I'd show the hosta who was boss when I got home. Off in the car I went with a sample of every virus infecting my hostas. There he was sitting in his golf cart, cap on, and cane engraved with Pete by his side. He told me tomorrow he would be 92 years old. He can't hear very well so his daughter Janet helped. I showed them my concerns, hmmmm frost damage here, hmmm frost damage here, hmmm water will remedy this, hmmm water here too, hmmm needs less sun, hmmm this here is a tissue culture Paradigm healthy plant no HVX, and hmmmm you need some nitrogen early next spring. Phew, here I was ready to throw in the towel. No HVX, no nematodes, no anthracnose, say whaaa? The word "weed" was mentioned once or twice during our conversation, very interesting. Janet mentioned someone once told her dad "hope they don't name a hosta after you Pete, it may be a dud!". It was a wonderful FUN day and I will be picking up my Peter Ruh hosta next week when I visit. I have to plant the 3 old blues I purchased first as well as the other 3. Yikes! Throw em on the driveway folks, they're just W__DS!
HAPPY 92nd BIRTHDAY PETER RUH. Told him I was going to do that.
Thanks to all of you on GWF. Have FUN :) Wendy aka WW