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Winter losses

10 years ago

Did anyone else here on the prairie lose an abnormal number of hostas this year? I'm so sad to say I've lost my Bressingham Blue, Sun Power, and one of my Frances Williams. (The other, as of today, has one two inch leaf on it.) I also lost my Big Daddy. All were on the north side, near the house foundation. I don't know if they will still come up at this late stage of the game. On the plus side, I did also buy a big honkin' T Rex.

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Comments (6)

Gesila
10 years ago
I only lost one that was in the ground (Rosedale Genevieve). I lost 10 or so that were in pots that I paid a ton of money for. This is the first year that I lost any, pots or in the ground.

Gesila
coll_123
10 years ago
I also lost several that were in pots and not sufficiently protected for winter. And I had a few in ground ones that came up stunted abd weird for unknown reasons. I think it was a harsh winter for many of us.
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Good luck, Jenny. I look out side and see the pond ice free and all the spring flowers coming up and I start getting worried. The messages from Mother Nature just don't jibe with Father Time's schedule. It's like waiting for the other shoe to drop. I seem to see all of my fishies. It's hard to tell the comets from one another and the water is too dark from tannins to see the bottom at the moment. I do see all of the Koi. They started to come to the surface last week when temperatures were in the sixties during the day. The crocus in the front yard are in bloom already and the snow drops are lovely. Zone 5 is as confusing as ever. I do have plans for the pond this summer but like everyone else, I'll have to see where the economy is headed first. If there is one thing I have learned when it comes to taking care of the yard, nothing ever is the way you expected, the raccoons are always going to scatter the plastic pots and DH always comes up with surprises.
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Comments (16)
I have a problem with my 4 ft Chamaecyparis thyoides 'Top Point'. I got it from Greers 2 yrs ago, looks now close to a skeleton, will give it another month to show new growth. It does not have a girdling root, I checked, and I sprayed it last year against insects, does not seem to have scale. Last summer it had a huge crop of cones. My 1 yr old, 1 ft tall, Abies koreana 'CIS' got all upper foliage yellow, has still some green lowers. I will wait into June before making a decision. As dcsteg Dave says, Abies koreana in zone 5 is only marginally hardy. Though my A.k. 'Green Carpet' is doing fine. We must have had a very cold winter compared to past years. I.e. my large magnolia only has a few flowers, all through the area only the lower branches of forsythia have flowers. My 'CIS' was in a chicken wire cage filled loosely with bark chips. Most of the winter it was covered with 2 ft snow. : ( Bernd
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Comments (28)
Lynxe, good for you! You're not rubbing it in at all, glad your faux pas' worked out like they did!! I had one hosta in a pot and forgot about it, I had laid it on the North side of the garage, under the eave and it looks fabulous. Go figure. I found another loss last night, 'Fort Knox'. That one kind of made me feel bad, it was the "friendliest" hosta I owned. The leaves would catch the breeze and out of the corner of my eye it would look like someone was waving. A very bright and cheerful hosta. I'll probably buy this one again, but the others I won't. I'm sorry others had winter losses as well, but Deb is right, that makes room for more hostas. I guess the snow theory is bogus, huh Pat? We had scant amounts of snow here, but it got very cold. I can tell, because the buds of all my hydrangeas were frozen, that only happens at around 0 degrees. I don't know if cold is a hosta factor. Donna
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Comments (6)
Jim, I have a couple in my plant room that spilled out over their containers onto the dirt floor, and they have climbed up the walls of the room and the leaves are huge. It was just the normal size pothos when it started evolving. It was so interesting for me to watch in a climate where they cannot be grown outside. I hope this new one takes off and runs with it .......... the other one was so beautiful.
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mosswitch
10 years ago
I lost a few that I had planted last spring and were having a struggle getting established with the drought, never did well and didn't come back this year. Lost one or two that had been here for a long time, but there again I blame the drought in the summer and not the winter, which was mild here. Just prolonged. ''

The ones I planted last fall all came up this spring growing well, but some of my older ones literally shrank, to about half their former size, due to the heat and drought. Hope they will regain their growth this year, or maybe next.

Sandy
netcub
10 years ago
I lost a big Rhino Hide... But A tiny tissue culture of it survived...

Also lost Totally Awe-sum and probably wont replace it.
User
10 years ago
So sad. I lost about 10 over the winter. Only one or two of those were due to rot, the rest were to the squirrels digging them out and the whole thing disappeared. Mostly the small things.

My DH is very busy doctoring his veggie garden today, he found a nest of borer eggs, or slug eggs, I'm not sure which, in his peppers and yellow squash. I do not know if that is why I lost two hosta within the last week, with the leaves cut off at the base and the crown just ate up. It made me sick. We are both doing the ammonia 1:10 treatment to stop this quickly.

We are hitting 100 this week, according to the thermometer under my potting umbrella, it was 101 yesterday in the shade. I cannot deal with all of that heat anymore. I don't want the hosta to deal with it either. We walk a fine line to keep the hosta thriving.
tepelus
10 years ago
I lost almost all of my hostas I had potted and a few in the ground. It has not been a good year for me.

Karen

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