Unfortunately I don't have help, but I can certainly sympathize! I am assuming you have had as much rain as we have here in Wisconsin. Just this week I walked outside and overnight some of my hostas were riddled with holes. Earwigs are one of my main culprits, and they are just loving all rain.
Jen

hey dude

been flushing my irrigation lines ...

i would say that EVERY SINGLE HOSTA IN THE 2 acres.. some 1600.. have the same malaise ...

since its spread over such a large area.. and being unaware of any current biblical level plagues..

i came to the conclusion it is frost damage ... and then threw up my hands in exasperation.. and moved on with my life ...

i just dont see how a bug could do such uniform damage over said space ... e.g. i have slugs in various areas .... but not uniformly across the board

otherwise.. i am wrong..

good luck with the show .. seems like you have a lot more friends than i do ... i am still not over last year .. and it is not in a good way ...

ken

Hey, Jim. I'm so sorry about the holey hosta. I noticed just yesterday that many of mine are also full of holes. It looks almost as if a caustic substance drops on the leaf and then eats through it, sometimes leaving thin membranes of the leaf in the damaged area. I was feeling so bad that it's not even July yet, and the darn things are going downhill already. I can only imagine how you must feel. Your gardens are still great, and hosta folk know that s**t happens. See you later in the week. Lois

thanks, Margo... I don't know anything about earwigs... I'll be looking them up...

thanks, Lois... that is exactly the symptoms. several people with local knowlege are throwing out the possibility of a hatch of flea beetles, which can be so small as to be almost invisible or large enough to see... I think I've seen some around...

I checked and the Cutter Backyard anti-mosquito spray is pyrithrum... one of the insecticides recommended for beetle control... so maybe my hitting everything will diminish the number of mosquitos and knock down the population of whatever hit us...

I've been watching the frost damage daily, Ken, so I kept blaming the early signs of this on frost as well... but now I think I've got both things going on.

Your tour was the big time - I can't imagine all the work getting ready for 400 people on tour buses - but with such a huge area, it must have been incredible work!

Didn't Reldon stop by to help weed?... thought I heard something like that... I've got a 28 year old daughter who is leaving for Ecuador tomorrow and just had to pay out of pocket for an automobile "whoops", so she is hungry for non-taxable cash... lots of hours out of her. All the rest of the folks we've brought in have been carefully curried over the last couple of years... gifts of plants and advice... so some unspoken IOUs are getting cashed in.

off to look up earwigs...

Last year some areas of my hosta suddenly had tiny white spots which then turned into pinholes. Sounds like your problem. I didn't figure out what caused it but am seeing some again in the last few days. Never had this in 25 years of growing hosta.

I have a dozen enormous hostas in my front yard and came here to see what to do about them (divide, replant, etc...they are taking over my front walkway).

I know nothing about gardening--am an inside kind of person, but have to respond to this thread!

Idiothe, I hosted a party last Sunday and was going to use hosta leaves in vases for centerpieces. Plucked some leaves on Saturday to test my arrangement; the plants looked great. Went out Sunday morning to get more leaves for the rest of the vases and ALL of the leaves on ALL of the plants had tiny little holes like you describe. Definitely not frost; it wasn't nearly cold enough. Happened literally overnight--the leaves I picked Saturday were fine.

Again, I know nothing about gardening so I have no ideas, but just wanted to say that it happened here in Michigan, too.

Jim - I'm not having the same problem as you are. Just a few slug holes here.

I have a ton of wildpurple wood violets in my yard - not the magenta ones you gave me. The leaves are absolutely shredded this year. I have never seen this in the nine years I've had them.

Ideas anyone. I'm just pulling them out as I have an excess of them.

Jim - that's too bad this muggy, stifling weather had to set in. It would've been nice to have one more cool week. Hopefully your garden is in shape and you don't have to spend too much time outside.

Lacebugs?

Here is a link that might be useful: U of M re. lacebugs

I viewed the link you posted Many. I will look at the underside of the leaves when I get home. Some of the leaves look like someone took a hole puncher to them.

many...thanks for the link, that article describes my hosta damage exactly. So this is 2nd year for lace bugs, & 3rd year for Japanese beetles, all pests I have never had before. Also, did not have slugs at our previous house, do have them here. Bummer! But, have had lots of rain ever since we moved (our 3rd summer here). Scheduled to be on the city garden tour next summer so would like to solve these problems. Cannot see myself bending over to treat the UNDERSIDE of thousands of leaves. Hurts to think about it!

I have exacally the same problem. My hostas were beautiful up until the last week of May, then over night the white dots appeared and then turned to holes, or transparent. I have had this problem for 3 years. We have sprayed and sprayed with ammonia to kill slugs. I never thought all the white spots were from slugs. It has to be a bug of some kind, or else a million slugs start eating on the very same night. It's very discouraging when your plants are so gorgeous, and then this happens. I get very discouraged every year. Today the deer ate several hundred daylily buds. I am just sick about that, what's next?! Now I'll go read about the lace bugs.

Or it could be these guys -
{{gwi:1048472}}

Paul

So what are they Paul?

Closest looking I found were cucumber beetle and elm leaf beetle - but I don't think they match. I had lots of holes and damage on a couple of different types of plants last year so I sprayed those plants (Teaspoon, Lambs Ear, and a bush clematis) and the nearby plants with an insecticide when I saw activity this year - well they just found some others - a ligularia(pic from previous) and a few others. No way I was going to try and spray all my gardens.

Paul

Those green guys go after my ligularia, too (and one clematis). I scratched and watered in a granular systemic this spring and the damage is less, but still evident. I'll have to live with it for the rest of this summer, because I don't want to use anything that would harm the bees.

I saw some "tiny holes" suddenly, in some of my hosta leaves this week, too. I wonder if the strong winds last Thursday blew in some bugs that usually lurk in the woods or farm fields?

Could the holes be caused by flea beetles?
They leave tiny holes all over leaves.

We had our NorthCoast Hosta Society leaf show this past weekend and everyone has this same issue - white spots that go to pin holes. We also believe that the Hosta "season" is at least 2 weeks early this year. It was hard to get a leaf without damage for the competition.

I would just explain that this year was an exception as from all the follow-up it's all over this growing season.

Good luck on the convention tour - I'm sure your garden will be just wonderful.

Deb

Those are four-lined plant bugs Jim and they are all over my garden this year leaving their little holes :(

I just noticed little holes in one of mine.... leaves riddled. But they don't look like the photo that Jim posted. They are just about perfect little round circles. Tiny, but like someone had punched them with a hole punch. :-(

Are these the holes everyone is talking about?

This is my all green Janet sport, and she's not alone. Nearly all of my hostas have these holes, old and new leaves. Only a few in the front yard do not have them, the ones that are new to me this year. All the rest are riddled with them. I thought it might be slugs, though some of the holes must be. But I don't think all these little holes can all be slugs. I had this problem last year too. Certainly makes the hostas less attractive, though I try to look past the ugly holes. First my hostas got pounded with hail (the big torn holes), then these little holes showed up, and then the slugs. But the holes won't keep me from growing them.

Karen

Yep, my neighbor posted last year about this very thing, Karen, her hosta,and your hosta look exactly the same.
Do you know what is causeing the holes?
cAROL

Mine looks just like that, Karen.

Jel - did you see my post before yours? I have the hole puncher thing going on with my wood violets.

I have no idea what could be causing these. I posted the pictures to see if anybody else might have an idea.

Karen

Just rolled back up and found it Teresa! That's exactly how they look! Wonder if it's the same insect. Seems funny that it's in multiple locations and multiple kinds of plants. I hate to think it's something we're going to see wide infestations of.

Jel - the holes on mine are not tiny like the ones in Karen's picks. They are the size of a hole punch - smaller than a pea. Totally wierd. I've never had a problem with the wood violets....in fact they are invasive......perhaps this will scale them back a bit! Mother Nature at work.

Hostas have some slug damage..... but I'm leaving it for now. I have a decent toad population in my yard and I am trying to fatten them up!

I have this exact thing going on, seems it happened overnight. Weird