Hallson Gardens

I saw this bleeding along the veins the other day on my Sun Power planted in 2006, and which has always thrived. You can see it on 3-4 leaves in the first picture. In 2006 I was in my second year of doing hosta gardening, and had not started a diary of where various plants were purchased (I have one now). I'd like the opinions of others about its appearence, -- should I wait for second flush of leaves? or is it fairly obvious? Should I obtain some test strips before I trash it? It's also possible that it was infected in my garden in 2006 or 07, from an August Moon that I got in 2005 and destroyed in 2008 as I might have transferrred it by cutting scapes -- prior to knowing what I know now HVX and cleaning tools etc.

Whole plant pic is from early May 2011 -- it has certainly been a bright standout in the garden -- really attractive, and I HATE to lose it.

Thanks for any comments.
Linda

For the price of the test you can (almost) buy a new plant! When the hosta is relatively easy to replace and inexpensive, I would always take the safe route and thrash the suspect plant. Make sure you disinfect the tools after digging the hosta and do not compost it! Do not plan to ever place another hosta in the same spot because it has not yet, to my knowledge, been determined how long one should wait before it is safe.

There is also a risk of transferring the virus to the adjacent plants (if they are not already infected) when digging. There is likely to be overlap of roots, which means that you may be cutting the roots of infected and uninfected plants, thus transferring plant sap from one to the other. To reduce the risk of this, you could cut the roots of the 'Sun Power' close to the crown and remove that and the foliage only. The roots that remain in the ground will soon decompose.

Viktoria