When this happened to me in the past, I did not do anything. The first leaves will be damaged, but new leaves will form and in July/August plants will look good again. Do not cut off damaged leaves because the good part will still be producing. I would cut off lateron the dried part of leaves and very bad looking leaves after new leaves have fully formed. The same also applies to hail damage. There were comparisons given in the Hosta Journal, people who cut off all damaged leaves lost, had small plants next year. Bernd

I don't know where the idea comes from that voles are just a winter issue. I hope no one believes that and gets raided in the summer because they didn't take action or precautions. Last summer I'd lost every one of my acorn squash to voles. They looked great from above until I went to pick and found they were empty hulls with vole holes directly under them. I had no apparent vole damage tomy hostas last year. Didn't get any winter squash in this year because of my spring rehab from surgery and this summer they are ravaging my hostas. Just two weeks ago I lifted what had been a beautiful Wide Brim for years. I thought the drought was getting to it and the neighboring Francee until I saw the vole hole under the remaining leaves right behind the crown. All I managed to pot up were three small divisions. If anyone doesn't believe me I can post pics of the new little ones. Wow-I had one Wide Brim and now I have three. Is that progress - or what! If planting a couple of seeds in spring for acorn squash helps keep them from eating my hostas, it may be a bonus in vole damage control. You can always eat what they don't :) Voles, if you live in an a habitat that supports them, should be treated as they are; a year around hazard. If you don't have a year around problem where you live, you need to at least be conscious that they do present a problem in the summer elsewhere. I gave in and bought four traps last week and baited them with peanut butter. The next morning two were sprung and the peanut butter gone, and two went completely missing. Not a dead vole in sight. Maybe some other critter dragged the traps off to eat the peanut butter in safety. Naturally I don't put much faith into running a trap-line for voles. I figure the score is voles 4 - Les nothing, and out the cost of 2 really nice mouse traps. lol So much for a "winter issue"! Two more daily high temp records were broken the days it happened. Now we have new records of 92F and 93F. I actually saw one the other day duck into its hole in one of my hosta beds as I approached. I'm going for the castor oil and maybe some bait if there is no danger to my German Shorthair Pointer. I don't think they do well in very rocky or hardpan soil. I never had them in the AR Ozarks and Sandy in MO Ozarks said she doesn't either. So maybe it is not a summer problem in your biosystem. Les

dig a hole.. and find out.. if your sprinklers are set to run long enough to actually get water 2 to 4 inches DEEP into the root zone... other than that.. its white centered... subject to melt out.. especially in drought/heat and its september ... and the dark mulch reflects and retains heat ... toasting it from below ... but the bottom line remains... it did NOT get enough water .. when you think about it.. the odds of every single type of plants being perfectly watered by a non-specific watering system.. its surprising more things dont have more problems ...... hosta need long DEEP drinks... to thrive.. yours is not getting that.. no matter how your system is doing what it does ... ... and.. as a result.. its going dormant early ... ken

Does i take time? If you do it thoroughly, it is a real time burner! So I spent the weekend with the same mess; I dug 20 mature clumps of Aphrodite - my prize bed, as the crowns were rotting and causing the clump to rot. I cut them apart at the crown level; cut out the rotten gooey parts, cleaned up any apparent root rot and bleached them. Then dried down a bit then replanted in the basement in covered dishes with some bulb rot methoxychlor dust to keep the leaf rot from expanding. They actually started showing some life the next day and will stay in the "treatment center" until they recover or rot. Will have to check moisture and rot levels, as too much moisture causes rot, but to re-root and get new growth need some moisture. Have to inspect daily and pull out the rotting ones that smell bad - they can rot in one day once they are susceptible with tissue damage. Can send photos of the process if you like. I will then start going through the garden in the morning looking for individual clumps that are rotting in the heat. Interesting was the cold freeze rotted the old crowns, which I had not experienced before, so the clumps were rotting internally. Just too cold for exposed growing plants not in dormancy. Bruce