Georgia Hosta Society

Questions and Answers

 

Below are a few Questions often asked concerning growing hostas. Our resident expert has Answered these questions.

If you have any questions regarding growing hostas, please contact our Q&A expert. Questions

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Dear George:
I have a hosta leaf that has some kind of disease on it. Is it nemotodes? How do I treat it? (Picture below)

Pat, that looks ugly! The elongated between-vein damage looks almost like foliar nematode damage after the fungi have taken over. What you see is secondary fungus infection. Fungi just clean up the mess of damaged tissue as they clean up everything in life - yes us too one day. Not a pleasant thought. Anyway, there had to be some damage (insects, nematodes, or falling objects) before the fungi start working. All the moisture we had accelerates this. I suggest you cut ALL the leaves on this plant right down to the ground (don't worry it'll be back next spring) and discard the leaves in the garbage. Then sprinkle something like Ortho systemic rose care on the ground around and on top of the plant, wait three weeks and do it again and so on until frost. Don't use too much. That will kill all fungi left in the ground as well as nematodes. Watch this plant next year starting in late June for nematode damage. So my diagnosis would be foliar nematode tissue damage with secondary fungus activated necrosis (= desiccating and rotting). Sorry, but I have seen this in my garden too. Not much you can do except fight it every year to keep them down. Read Warren's article in the latest HJ. Above all don't fret and worry about this. It's nature and there isn't a darn thing we can do about it. George