How are your hostas looking ?

[thy]

Mine are tired, more tired than usually - they have looked tired for the last month or so.
All in all they look healthy, have had a good growth during the summer time, but our summer have been strange... once again.
Starting very late, nearly had to be May before real spring arrived with high temps dropping to average minimum in a rainy June, then in July the weather changed to warm, sunny and very dry for nearly 6 weeks, then out of the blue came some days with fall temps, rain and storms, then sunny for awhile then some fall days and then slowly dropping normally with September sun and some rain.

Starting to forget how 'normal' Danish weather is .. always changing, but not in a violent way.
When I see pics from US the hostas looks good this year, but... it can be the nice hosta in the wet corner, so how do your hostas look

[kHT]

Thy, I'm with you after moving plants this am due to another storm is headed in with high
winds. The second one in two weeks and I'm tired of moving plants! I hate seeing them
blow over and having to go out and put them back in place. As for the hosta, hanging my
head in shame here, they are 80% cut back already. I have been moving plants and they were
on my list for things to move this weekend. To my surprise those that get the most sun are
growing and one has a flower spike. Those that are in the front yard and cut back the first week
of July are so breath taking as they did come back, those are in full sun. We here can do this
and see some plants bloom again.

[ogrefcf]

Mine are looking okay, but pretty much done for the season. I lost a few due to it being so hot this summer and not able to get them enough water .

[Chris_W]

Keep watering them Owen and maybe they will come back.

Ours did really well this year, especially compared to last year, though we had more slugs than normal with all the rain. It is time to apply slug bait one last time for the year.

Just today I finally noticed that a lot of them have that golden yellow fall color to them. For a while it would be one hosta here and one hosta there, but now there are entire rows of the same plant that have turned golden colored for the fall. Alex Summers is like that, and so are the tokudamas. Rainforest Sunrise and Twist of Lime also have turned color for the fall. In a couple more weeks it will be hard to tell what they are without the labels so I'm going to spend a couple days this week putting new labels on the rows.

Won't be long before winter, and hopefully they will have a nice sleep and wake up really late in the spring after the frost danger is over

[redcrx]

Here is a photo from last Friday of my Fragrant Bouquet family area - they hold up well for me.

Fragrant Bouquet area - September 27, 2013

[Linda P]

I have some that look amazingly well for this time of year. We had above normal rainfall the first part of the summer, then the rain stopped the end of July and hasn't really returned yet. We've had nothing more than an inch of rain here and there, far below normal. I have been watering since the end of July, but took a break the last couple of weeks. We are supposed to have a chance of rain Thurs, Fri, Sat this week, so I think I'll wait to drag the hoses out again.
I have a lot that were smaller this year after the year long drought last year, and lost a few altogether to drought or voles, and had a terrible problem with some of them rotting in the early summer when we had all the rain.
On the upside, I think maybe the voles are back under control again. The barn kitty who is a good vole hunter seems to have trained her kittens pretty well, because I seem them out hunting under the hostas. I have two cats in the house that were rescued by my granddaughters 10 summers ago when the kitties mom died. They couldn't stand to have them go out to the barn so they drug them in my house. They still live in the house, but they do go outside. They've caught some voles over the summer as well. They brought me a dead one last week and dropped it on the deck right outside the door. So, I know they are catching them! All in all, it hasn't been too bad of a year in the garden. I am way behind in getting things done, but I don't expect that will get much better as the years go on!

[Tigger]

Hostas are looking sleepy, for the most part. But we just got back from vacation, and one whole bed is nothing but petioles! Hungry deer always seem to know when we're away. This late in the year, though, it just means less clean-up work.

[ViolaAnn]

Lace!

[thy]

LOL Ann

Some now have the beautiful golden color here

[Wheasie]

Mine largely look like sh*t. Frayed on edges, some with 90% or more of foliage gone. Anxious for another season.

[ViolaAnn]

Foliar nematodes have made their way into large parts of my gardens. A few years ago when I had the very first infected plants, I destroyed them, but the buggers spread anyway. I don't think there is a cure as they are in the soil. I'm not about to dig up 190 varieties of hostas and replace all of them and all of the soil. They've even gotten into plants in pots that have never been in the soil. There are only a few sections of my gardens which are not affected at all.

Since there is nothing legal with which I can treat them, they are here to stay and I'll have to enjoy my hostas in the early part of the season. Meanwhile, I do what I can by cutting leaves, cutting back ALL of my hostas at this time of year (cleaning my tools between each one) and disposing of them in the city yard waste rather than my own compost. And I'm dousing large areas of my garden with a Hydrogen Peroxide mix which might help.

[Wheasie]

I was wondering about folliar nemtodes but looking at pictures, I think not. I think my hostas are suffering from an excess of alpha dog urine.

[Carol O]

One I took this morning. I think it's rather pretty.

2010 Rosedale Misty Magic seedling

[redcrx]

I was out getting some flower pictures this morning and came upon this one starting up again. This is my biggest Gypsy Rose that looks great until the heat of summer cooks it since it's sitting in direct sun most of the day. (I have shown this one for years - viewtopic.php?f=1&t=54196 )

Gypsy Rose - October 14, 2013

[Zkathy]

Most of mine have just been planted since the end of summer so they still look good. This is the blue bed AKA The Hosta Leaf bed.

[ViolaAnn]

I have some pictures taken in the last two weeks, but have to resize them for this site. That will take some time. I've now cut down most of my hostas except a few which are still blooming or on which I have wanted seeds developing.

I have noticed that, in general, anything in the Halcyon-June family has held up very well and long into the autumn with a real minimum of slug or other damage. No visible signs of foliar nematodes either. So that's a good recommendation for the entire family which for me, includes:

Halcyon
June (2 divisions in 2 really different parts of the garden - you'd think they were 2 different plants)
High Society
Remember Me
Touch of Class
Ripple Effect
Blue Ivory
Bulletproof
Stand By Me
First Frost
a June seedling I'm calling 'Lovely Leila'

They aren't the ONLY ones that were in good shape, but all of them were.

[thy]

Some nice pics of fresh and fall hostas

Sorry for your nematode problems Ann

[Schattenfreude]

Ann,

My plants from the Halcyon family are also still looking good this time of year. As for the rest of them.... well, let's just say I'm looking forward to that first frost later this week

Kevin in KC

[Phil]

Some of mine are done, some have Fall foliage, and a few still look great! June, Stained Glass, Fragrant Bouquet, Cathedral Windows and a few others are going to hang in until the end!

[ViolaAnn]

I have nearly finished cutting back my hostas. As I've mentioned, I do this because of the foliar nematodes that have invaded my garden. Cutting them back gives me a slight chance of controlling them. I believe there is a zero chance of eradicating them. At any rate, I have only a handful from which I have yet to cut the seed pods to mature in sugar water and a couple which are still blooming - Marilyn Monroe looks pretty good still and has masses of blooms.

I've just had a chance to resize, small enough to post here, the images I have of garden lace. Might as well look for the beauty in them. All these pictures were taken Sept. 29 or 30.

A leaf from 'Amy's Choice', my own seedling from 'Korean Snow'. The slugs got to it while I was on vacation in early July.

Another leaf from 'Amy's Choice'.

'Cherry Berry'

A leaf from 'Dee's Golden Jewel'

A leaf from 'Elinor Lachman'