Saw virused hostas today

[bengal]

This is almost too embarrassing to post.

I went hosta & daylily shopping today. The first place I visited was basically a one-man operation. The owner is an elderly man who sells daylilies he's had for years -- and hostas he buys from Holland every year.

When I heard that, I really started looking around carefully. And there were two Sum And Substance hostas with definite virus. A few other hostas had virus as well.

And I didn't say anything.

This elderly man takes Sundays off. You go there, buy what you want, and leave money in a box. Except he came out of his house to show me around and talk about his plants. He seemed so proud of his (very) little operation.

I just didn't know how to bring up the subject.

What does one do in such situations?

[eastwood2007]

Send him an info sheet...

[NWhosta4life]

I agree, send him a sheet from a mystery sender

[Blackkat]

The same thing happened to me in May. An elderly couple obviously took a lot of time to grow a modest stock of hostas in their back yard. They were selling them to suppliment their income and were very proud of what they had. I heard about their place by word of mouth and stopped by just to look around. All I can say is "wow". Splotches and puckered leaves were common on many of their hostas and I felt sorry for these people. I didn't want to say anything to them about the crippled looking plants.

However, I just couldn't let it go and tried a tact that seemed the least likely to cause an awkward situation. First, I complimented them on the effort they had made to make their yard look so beautiful with hostas. Then, I asked if they ever heard of Hosta Virus X. The answer was no. I asked if they had a computer. Why, yes they did. I wrote out the web address for Hallson's and said that it had a wonderful forum related to many plants, especially hostas, and there was valuable information there on hosta growing and HVX that might be useful to them. I added that buying hostas to sell is tricky these days. The response? A terse, "The websites we go to are informative enough." And that was it.

I didn't run from their gardens while waving my arms in the air and shouting "Hosta Virus X! You have Hosta Virus X!" despite a serious urge to do so. In fact, I didn't directly mention my suspicions at all. Maybe I wimped out, but I had hoped to at least make them think and arouse some curiosity. A good source of information was right there for them to draw their own conclusions. Alas.