Ouch. That's painful to look at Ruth! Luckily next year is a new start. Deadline keeps me slug free but cutworms are another story this year. More poor little kaleidochrome.

Ruth,
Do you have any close up pictures of your Lakeside Paisley Print? A lot of the brown damage on your Lakeside Paisley Print looks like nematodes from what I can see in the current picture.
Vanessa

Vanessa - I can take a close up, but I'll say that the damage began with slug holes, and the brown came later in the same areas, and across veins vs. between veins. Does that help?

Ooops! Twilight looking pretty good - until I stepped on it!

{{gwi:1072291}}

DD

This post was edited by DelawareDonna on Wed, Aug 20, 14 at 12:06

Donna, I can relate. I fell on my Night Before Christmas. Some big critter walked in the middle of my Invincible and f. aureomarginata. Cleo (my darling demon devil dog) chased the chihuahua through the bottom row of my stadium shelves and all the hosta that were there. Before that, I put a fig on the top shelf of the stadium shelves to keep her out of it. She climbed up two rows to get to it so that she could eat the leaves. All the rows were full of hosta. It's been a rough year for my hosta.

So, that said, the dirtiest laundry would be a hard one. My big disappointment and one of the ugliest hosta I have is August Moon. It looked great when I bought it this spring. I'm wondering if it hates the pot or Texas. Either way, it's not a pretty hosta.

bk

Hmmmm pretty sad looking. I definitely need to step up the care taking. I don't have an ID on this one yet.

I must take some pics tomorrow then we can play what was that hosta? or name that meltout?

My first year has been a steep learning curve but at least I'm learning lol.

Denis

PS. I wish my August moon looked as good as BK's lol.

Mountainy, it was big when I bought it. I think they call that size two gallon. (nursery sizes make no sense whatsoever) It was nice and yellow. Now, it's just dirty green. Yuck.

bk

Here's another kind of dirty laundry. This one has been walked on, knocked out of it's pot and not well drained. It's pretty ugly, too. It's Sweet Innocence. There's always next year.

Here's one of my dirty laundry hosta.
Peppermint Ice is tickin' me off and so the plan is to put it into a pot to see if it will behave better next year. I hope it's not nematodes or something...

Invincible is looking pretty beat-up and awful at this time of the season...

Don B.

My Invincible usually goes down early. I always think I'm doing something wrong. I repotted it this time of year one time. I finally got it that it goes down early here. Who knows why? The heat? The lack of humidity? I think I've accepted it.

This year, however, Invincible has been a star. It looks the best it's ever looked. Then, it bloomed. Some good sized creature walked in the middle of it while in full bloom. The whole top was broken. So.....alas...... it's not starring anymore.

bk

Here's my Brim Cup. I took this photo in July just for the record. It actually looked lovely a couple of years ago. I repot it last year and thought that would help, but it didn't. Now it's just teasing me---it's got about five nice leaves on it with the others looking ratty just like the photo. One more year and if it doesn't improve, out it goes!

Well BK this is my August Moon (in full sun) and i think you should be grateful that yours don't resemble this lol.

Most of mine that are in the ground are doing ok but this pot thang aint goin so well lol. I have had some "interesting" weather to include in my excuses, a series of thunder storms with hail in early july kinda shredded some of the thinner leaved ones and bruised all of them. we had some very warm weather after that and now august is resembling late october with strong wind (tail end of one of your hurricanes, kindly keep them to yourselves, thanks lol!) temps struggling to reach the mid teens C. and we were warned of frost last night!

All those excuses aside my medium has not been good, far too free draining (water came straight out the bottom of the pot) and my watering has not been enough to counteract the transpiration and many have fried. I have almost a constant breeze and this doesn't help either. I do have some in full sun at the back of the house and they are fried but were busting roots out the bottom of their pots and had to be up-potted which is a good sign for next year.

I have a display at the front of the house that faces north with sun till 11 am and I think that it is still too bright for them, the wall is whitewashed and reflects a lot of light. Some have bleached in this position as well as fried. It seems the sun can be too strong this far north, but it is probably a combination of all these factors.

So....well I've learnt a lol this year and what I have to address is 1. Better medium. 2. better shade. 3. Less wind. 4. Get em in the ground.

I have come to the difficult decision not to acquire any more (lol) til I have somewhere to plant these guys. I have expanded the garden this year and will be planting oodles of trees for shade this autumn/winter to protect my collection.

Dirty Laundry is an apt title as I really didn't want to show mine in this state, but you live and learn what works and what doesn't and mabey this will be helpful to newbies.

I will post a few of my other disasters lol.

Denis

Great Expectations, shady position, north facing, was looking great earlier in the season.

Wide Brim, melty, in shade.

Royal Standard in shade trying to flower, I forgot to mention above that most of the flowers got to bud and then just dried up and fell off, so sad :(

anyway thats enough I can't bear to show you guys any more.

Next year will be better.

Denis

Wow Denis, those are some bad looking hosta but like you said, there is always next year. My Guaccamole would fit right in with yours so I'm not one to gloat. That being said, I still think the prize goes to Ruth's Lakeside Paisely Print. Hard to look at :(

Hosta Loyalist. This is what happens when you leave this guy out where it gets any Texas sun whatsoever. I moved it into total shade in June and it has suffered no more damage. As bad as it looks it actually appears to be very healthy and I have great hopes for it next spring.

My Maui Buttercups:

Nuff said...

This one is just begging to join in....I have nothing to say or add - except (lol) dunno what happened, don't care, but feel sorry for whatever...ouch, ugh, ooh wee, wince, groan, aargh, etc. etc. yes, more than 'nuff said' but it's difficult for me, sometimes, to just let a point lie....never thought I'd show a plant in this condition!!!!

This is like a cleansing, LOL!

The above is a Katsuragawa Beni...I actually think this very consistent coverage (kind of artsy, no? Lol) that resembles entry into dormancy, don't you? We had a couple of cool 10-11 degree nights....I know, I'm trying to excuse my hand in this, but it IS possible (says the embarrassed mother).
:-(

Oh my - so much pain to endure looking at all these ratty plants. Denis, whew, better luck next year, guy. :( :(

DD

Here is Guaccamole flowering.

That big bruiser of yours can be as ratty as it wants...as long as it produces those scrumptious fragrant blooms, right? Yay for Guacamole! Barb, it really doesn't look so bad - it's size and flowers take front seat! Me like!

Jo

Luna Moth is looking pretty bad these days. ; (

Don B.

Don - you're Luna Moth is looking kind of bad - surely you jest.

DD

I think this young man is pulling our leg, Donna! Gotta love it! Lol
Hey Don...it's looking pretty nasty...send it on over to me - I've got an ICU just for hostas!

Joking?? You see that leaf at 4 o' clock? That's quite a brown spot on it! : ) I'm not sure it can survive the trip to your house, Jo!

Don B.

Denis, in 2012 I had a good amount of hostas that I made some mistakes with (mostly badly underestimated how much water they REALLY need to stay pretty, in my case, the few I had potted I should have used better media, too) so I sympathize with how your plants turned out this season. BUT they're really tough, and usually bounce right back the following season from our abuse LOL.

Don't worry, although I know it's frustrating; They'll be back! No doubt!

Cheers buddy,
Don B.

Ahhh, a spot on Luna Month!! Tsk tsk, Don, I admit the Luna Moth is one of the strong performers and a blemish is rare. But, it is among the most enduring of plants in my garden. So is Squash Casserole et al, and most of the fragrant hosta.

I really feel for BKay, I did not know you had LOW humidity up that way, I thought we had similar circumstances. Gads, when will the Devil Demon Doglet grow up and sit sedately at your side, not chasing things over the hosta bleachers! I'm so glad I have two low to the ground dachshunds who simply like to dig in the mulch. I have moved pots further apart for the fat one though. They like getting beneath the cover of green hosta leaves and tracking scents.

My goodness, I have at least four hosta which are totally heat dormant this year, one with a nice scape with seedpods still standing. The light substanced Bibb Lettuce by Stuart Asch was the first to go. Then I can commiserate with Denis, those fried hosta leaves are a familiar sight here too. I thought it was a zonal problem, but I suppose not. I water regularly and patrol the garden looking for dis ease and disease as well, moving things to get more or less of light and/or water.

I decided I simply cannot grow Dawn's Early Light. It doesn't like my garden. This is the third year for it to look like carp, and I'm pretty discouraged by that. Most of my golds are doing fine. But, anything with WHITE, it looks like Denis and Santa's with an alligator bite out of the midleaf, and distinct long chewed grooved all around the leaves. I'm truly reluctant to use any chemicals that might harm pollinators that I encourage to attend the needs of my fertile bloomers. I'm not sure of the NIGHT pollinators I might count on, but whatever lands on me after dark is pretty safe, unless they are scared off by my screams and jumping around a lot.

This is two Pathfinder with Half And Half in between. The white seems to melt regardless of where it appears on the leaf.

Littler Ice Cream is drying up about to blow away. Or else go heat dormant. I moved it to a different spot with more shade and less watering

Carnival is simply dead, it was eaten by something, don't you think? All those HOLES in the crown!

This doesn't count any of the hosta which have the bottom layer of leaves dying and drying up. Once they are down, I simply pull them off cleanly. Those hosta are generally making a second and third flush of leaves, I cannot find fault with that. After all, they are not even supposed to be growing here, remember? But don't tell them!

I'm wondering if I should be taking notes on the varieties not making it elsewhere, if they are problems here too. If so, I'll be putting some on the DO NOT REHIRE list. Life is too short and planting space too precious to choose non-productive plants. Too many good ones yet to discover.

Great thread. I'm late to the party yet again.

"DO NOT REHIRE" is perfect. Perfect term for it.

Don B.

Got 9 of these noid hostas from my mothers garden since she was going to throw them out. Put six under my daughters window at the side of the house and three along the walking path. Embarrassed to admit this, but the 6 at the side, I forgot about and havent watered once. All 6 look this ratty.

This is another one of my oopsies. While redoing the front garden bed and changing the layout, had to purchase another liberty and couldnt plant it right away. With everything going on, forgot it was in a pot and needed extra water. It seems to be doing better now that it is in the ground. Is even sending up some new growth.

Solar Flare, looking like it's actually been hit by one.

I like that "not on the rehire list". There are some I know I wouldn't buy again. We should do a list for what works in a pot in our zone and area. There's probably a Google online app for it.

We have pretty high humidity in the spring. After it gets hot, our humidity decreases, especially in the afternoon. At 5 PM yesterday, we were at 100 degrees (37.7 C) and 27% humidity, and this is not particularly hot year. It's hard for them to pump enough water to the leaves to make up for that.

bk

The party isn't over til the last guest leaves, Mocc. That's frequently me.

This is the best Midnight Sun has looked all year.

Kathy

Jo, thanks for the kind comments on my Guaccamole. It does have beautiful fragrant flowers inspite of the ratty appearance of the leaves. I fear Nematodes are part of the problem and too much sun. I would divide it next year but I don't want to introduce Nematodes to another part of the garden. What to do, what to do?

Hi Barb...

Would you be willing to start another thread with close-up pics of some of the 'bad' leaves? Pretty sure our eagle-eyed nematode experts can give you some good info...

Cheers,
Don B.