I still have my Tokudama FC,which was one the very first hostas I ever planted. Right after I planted it,it was attacked by voles and eaten so bad,all it had was one leaf and a tiny root attached. Well,it came up the following year but stayed small that year. I moved it to my new garden,and there it still resides,though still smaller than it would have been under "normal" conditions. It looks pretty good this year,though it had 2 eyes last year. It is very slow growing and always the last to come up every year.It is larger than this now,as this pic isn't recent anymore. Phil
{{gwi:911154}}

I have so many stories like this because of moles and voles I could write a book. Or at least a very long list of hosta that really struggled.

A couple of years ago, I divided a beautiful Golden Edger. I edged a whole new bed with them. The next year, gone, gone, gone. All of them.

This year, 2 years later? I just found two Golden Edgers popping through the mulch where the garden's edge used to be. I was thrilled.

I also thought Paul's Glory was gone. I thought it was poking through, but that turned out to be May apples. Just 2 days ago, under the August Moon I put in that supposedly empty spot? I've got small leaves of Paul under it.

Does sticking pieces of hosta into the ground that didn't have any roots at all, watering them religiously, and having them start to produce roots count as gone then not?
I have 3 going on like that right now, and have actually had a Night Before Christmas root in water from leaves with a thickish base stem on them.

COOL!
Christine

I love "survival stories"! I hope there are more. As I understand it, even if there is the
tiniest bit of crown left on the stem, there's a chance they will put out roots! Just goes to
show how compulsive we are about them--we have to try and "save" as many as we can!

BTW, Phil--love your sign next to your TFC!! I have a similar one next to my front door! :o)

janice

Wow! Phil,
I'm glad you shared that story and pic!
I just planted Tok FC last fall, and am glad to hear how tough it is, and such a pretty Hosta!

Christine, thanks for sharing your stories. I can relate to those supposedly "empty" spots - Plant something new because the previous one died. That happened to me several years ago before I was "into" Hostas. I planted an unknown Hosta probably from a box in a dept. store, that "never" came up, so planted a fern in the "empty" spot. A year later they BOTH came up. I've been letting the hosta grow bigger, so that when I separate the two, the Hosta will be strong enough to withstand me untangling the two of them.

Here they are.
The fern suffered some frost damage a few weeks ago.

Any more stories?

Julie

I truly think she IS a gonner...I planted Sagae into a whiskey barrel last summer,it was doing wonderful and I was looking forward to a beautiful hosta this year. In the fall I mulched with leaves, and covered it so no freeze/thaw could occur but alas no signs of her yet...is she just a late bloomer or is she a gonner?

My Sagae is slow, but 1) it was chewed to a nub by voles, and 2) I didn't know it was a heavy feeder. That means horse poop is a necessity.

Just hang in there -- or dig it up and look. You're pretty far north, so I'd wait.

Christine

A couple of years ago, I spotted a hosta in a restaurant parking lot, out of its pot and run over a couple of times. Bare roots on asphalt in the summer Georgia sun. I cut off the worst of the damage and kept it in a cup of water on my desk until I could get home and get it into the ground. It's still not huge, but doing OK.

Four years ago I purchase Hosta "Guacamole" from the expensive garden center nearby. I put it in the floor of the backseat and hurried home. It was a typical July day in Baltimore, hotter than the hinges of Hades and ever so humid. The plant looked wilty when I got it home but I got it right in the ground and watered it well.
Three hours later when I went to gloat over it a little, the leaves were white as milk and flopped over on the ground. It looked like a ghost hosta. I was upset because I had spent $15 on a single hosta, and killed it on the fist day, and that's the kind of thing that makes my spouse crazy. I resolved not to tell him about the $15...
I kept watering the bed because other things were planted there- and within two weeks a couple of tiny new leaves pushed up from the 'dead' hosta. Guacamole is now large, luxuriant and one of my favorite hostas.

This year I have been very fortunate that even with this weird weather I have lost very few plants. I thought Old Faithful was a goner. It got hit pretty hard by a late frost and just sat there. It had started to come up but none of the leaves ever unfolded. I moved it from the relative shady spot it was in to one with much more sun hoping it might perk up and still it just sat there. One day on my walk through the hostas I noticed a new eye poking up through the soil as well as a lot of nats around the main eye so I peeled the leaves that had never opened off and found the center rotted and holding water. I poured out the water and left it for the crown to die and the new eye to grow. I soon noticed 2 more new eyes coming up and was very relieved that it was going to be ok. Now ya want to know how tough this hosta really is? A couple of days ago I noticed 2 leaves emerging from the original eye when I went to repot it to remove that part. I thought for sure it was going to rot away and I was going to repot the new eyes and throw that part of the crown away. All of the plant is doing well now. I continue to be amazed at just how tough hostas really are!
Art

Frankly,
I read these concerns here about an extra hour of sun too much, or did I hurt it's roots, or whatever.

Other than the voles, (at least here with me) I can't kill 'em. They're almost as good as ornamental grasses, which when all is said and done, is just GRASS. Hosta are hosta and engineered to live forever. Do you think there are fossil hosta?

Christine

Love these stories coming in!
Such a nice variety of them!

I've been watching my Orange Marmalade that I planted last Sunday to a safe place, away from my jumping-jack dog. It is starting to show some "personality". I'll try and post a photo this weekend, or some time soon.

Any more stories? I love hearing them.

Julie

Mine is the poor Nigrescens that survived the Blue Spruce roots, the dog and roundup.
A few years ago I got the bright idea to trim the bottom branches off the Blue Spruce in our yard and put a bed under it. Planted it full with Sum and Substance, Blue Angel, Krossa Regal, Nigrescens and a few others. After a couple years I noticed the Hosta seemed to be coming back smaller than the year before.

Long story short the Blue Spruce has roots that grow like a cross between hairballs and spaghetti. They were just choking the life from the hosta. Problem was, I was out of room and didn't have anywhere to move them to. I slowly made space to move them one at a time to other areas. By the time I was ready to move the Nigrescens it was down to one eye and withering fast. I removed it and separated the spruce ball of roots and gave it a good soaking in super thrive and put it in the ground in its new home. It sat there status quo for the rest of the year.

This year it comes up as one lonely eye and when it's about 3 inches tall, the dog not only steps on it, but decides to lay on it as well. I thought it was a goner so I kinda wrote it off. A few days later we get a pretty heavy frost and I'm sure it's done at this point.

A couple weeks later I'm making the annual trek with the roundup around the edge of the beds and there is a couple weeds popped up where the Nigrescens was so I give them a good shot of roundup. To my surprise nestled right there in the weeds is a tiny little sprout. Sure enough, the little guy was trying to make a comeback and I just shot it with weed killer. I washed off the little leaf and pulled the weeds around it, watered the area in an attempt to dilute the roundup I just sprayed, and said a little prayer.

It's still one lonely eye but it gets a little bigger every day. It may be permanently hurt but I don't feel like I can give up on it now.

Ya' just never know.

Every year I think On Stage is a gonner because it emerges several weeks later than the last of all the others. Thought it was for sure this year but it peeked out of the ground just about a week ago even later than usual.

Hostas do so well up here generally, that I've never yet lost one - until this spring, and climate had nothing to do with it. Four weeks ago I thought my losses were going to be just huge - and I was devastated.

Last fall two sections of my garden were literally razed by a city backhoe. Some parts had foot-deep ruts carved into them: I was convinced ALL plants there were destroyed. But no, over the past couple of weeks I've been watching four rise from the dead - Blue Ice (yahoo!), Blue Shadows, Little Aurora, and Lakeside Black Satin. True Blue is gone for good, but I have another. Big, big relief!

I also have three I was sure the squirrels munched too far down to the nub - and again, these are making a nice comeback: Morning Light, Golden Medallion, and a Lakeside Little Gem seedling. I potted these up in good growing mix to let them grow with no competition this year.

And I'm watching a couple of "mystery roots" that are very slowly trying to manufacture an eye. So, all in all, the devastation is not nearly as terrible as I'd thought.

Hostas really ARE indestructible.

Heucheras, on the other hand, can be really iffy up here - Palace Purple, for example, failed to return twice: it's an expensive annual!

I have a tokudama that I thought was gone, I didn't see a sign of it last year, but today I found it growing quite happily among the browning daffodil foliage. It had about 12 leaves and looked great.

By the way, I found a gorgeous specimen of Orange marmalade at Kroger grocery store for $10. I couldn't believe my good fortune. I checked it for HVX and have it quarantined in a pot to see how it does throughout the season. It will stay in a pot for several years until I'm sure it's not virused. But it looks great. I'll post a photo later.

Lainey