Generally hostas in the current year are telling the tale of last year's weather. Not sure what yours was like but mine was HOT and DRY. Many of my hosta are smaller this year.

Keep watering this year and see what happens in 2012!

Voles ?

I've found that many of my hosta came back with more eyes and yet their leaves are smaller! Almost like they had all been severely damaged and cut back last year--but not so!

Several have diminished, as well. Most notably and surprisingly 'Abba Dabba Do'! It looked terrible last year, so I dug it up and looked at the roots for competition, vole damage and what not with no evidence why they were in a wilted state and diminishing, after several years of vitality. This year, they are back, so far not wilted but of course diminished!

I'm interested to hear if there are any more suggestions about your 'Elegans', Linda! Strange weather and sometimes strange things happening in our gardens, it seems!

My Inniswood is very small this year. Can't be lack of water as we had ample rain last summer, can't see any evidence of vole tunnels. Don't know what's going on.

I, also, have some that have diminished in size for no known good reason this year. My Elegans seem to be fine, but my Thunderbolt is not. Last year it had HUGE leaves, this year, although it came up with more eyes and I was very excited at first, the leaves are very small. My Regal Splendor, Gold Standard and one other one (I can't remember which one) have come up much smaller in size this year. The strange thing is that they all have an increase in eyes. There size is just diminished. We really have had very strange weather this year. I wonder if that is it?

I had 3 plants just disappear completely..poof...gone...no where to be found. The monster voles did leave their plant markers though. How nice of them.

A lot of my hosta were small this year, too. I'm in the process of making my garden borders smaller, so I had to move a bunch of hosta to new locations. After lifting them, I banged the rootball on the ground a couple of times (learned that here) and replanted in the new spots. They really took off and are growing great. I too have a thunderbolt that isn't doing much. It's in the right spot, but I'm going to dig it up, bang the rootball on the ground a couple of times, and replant it.

I had the same results with some daylilies that seemed "stalled".

Might be voles.....but why would they choose the elegans in the front bed and the one in the back bed and no other hosta?
It's almost like the elegans said "hey....I'm not going to even try to compete with that blue angel....I'll just crawl into my shell!"
Silly plants....don't they know I love them all?
Linda C

Had similar experience with Christmas Tree - leaped for a couple of years and then came back smaller leaves one spring and has stayed small. Potted it up recently - some big roots, very few fine roots, and divisions/eyes were all separate. I'm going to grow it on the deck for a couple of years and see if it responds to more light and moisture. Have a second that was planted at same time and in same area - it took longer to leap, but is starting to look good.

Paul

Could it be tree roots?
I have several hosta near a large Hemlock tree and the closer to the tree, the more stinted their growth seems to be. Some a definitely much smaller than last year. I am going to replant them in Tex-R bags and see what happens next year.

I had this problem as well when I was chopping holes in tree root infested beds to insert hostas. They just could not compete for water or nutrients even with hand watering.