Journey's End Issues

[NancyL]

Last spring I posted a photo in least favorite Hostas of my Journey's End. It turned into a poor performer. It was suggested I move it so as soon as we got home last week I worked on moving it. The first photo is poor performance in the spring. Photo 2 is with the mulch pulled back and the pond basket evident that I plant most of my better Hostas in. Therein probably lies the problem - pot too small for a large Hosta 14"x14" pot dimensions. Photo 3 is the plant pulled from the soil. I have had good luck using the baskets to protect from vole damage from below. The small roots can get through the mesh. Perhaps this one got too big for its' mesh pot. I broke it in 1/2 and planted 1/2 back in the basket and the other 1/2 with no protection from voles. I hope that both parts bounce back, the roots looked really healthy. With VL hostas I use black plastic pots with slashes cut in them to let roots out to provide partial protection from voles. With my Empress Wu I just dug a large wide and deep hole and filled it with 3 bags of crushed gravel. I always say that voles are much worse in my garden than the deer. At least with deer the plant has will come back next year. I lost my Kinbuchi Tachi completely never to return. I look at all the tags in my book that I save them in and wonder where in the world did they go?









Below - Krossa Regal getting moved with its' pot.

[Chris_W]

Hopefully you can salvage something from it. Journey's End can be finicky getting started here sometimes too, which is why we don't usually have very many to offer. If it wasn't so pretty as a mature plant I wouldn't take the effort to grow it.

Good luck with your vole battles!

Chris

[Eleven]

Nancy, I also hope the plants comes back for you. I'm very glad that Chris does grow them and talked me into it five years ago. Pretty sure it was my most expensive hosta at the time! But I love it so much now.

[NancyL]

Thanks Eleven and Chris - there is hope with the roots looking nice and healthy. Hopefully as Chris mentioned it is just finiky and didn't like being in the pond basket. Here is how pretty it looked last year when it was just starting to show its' stuff. The big one in back is either a Komodo Dragon or a KD seedling, it has been there so long I can't remember. KD throws a lot of seedlings that look like KD.

[Eleven]

Funny, the grey green one behind mine is also Komodo Dragon

[redcrx]

I got Journey's End from Chris back in 2008 when I was starting my hosta garden. It is now the biggest hosta. Some that could be bigger had more root competition and vole issues. Somehow the voles missed this one but took out 7 plants just to the right of this group - my dead vole count is at 31 - it's been war all summer.

Journey's End with Li'l Abner to the right and a very late flowering Fujibotan.

Journey's End - September 8, 2014

Journey's End - September 8, 2014