It looks to me like something fairly good could be done with these pines. My question is who would do the work? If you could do it yourself, which would mean having some good chainsaw experience, I can give you detailed instructions and some technical hints about how to solve one or two specific problems you will encounter. If you can't do this work yourself, contact your local forest service and/or find a good consulting forester. these may be some chance that you could hire someone to do the work under the supervision of a forester. Basically what I am talking about is thinning out these trees, leaving the best for further growth. And then as you would like for aesthetic purposes, prune at least some of them. And just for your information--although they are somewhat too crowded now, they were planted properly with the proper spacing for this kind of plantation. --Spruce

Thank you, Mark, for sharing DSH's rationale for cutting the leaves. While it still doesn't make much sense to me, at least it is helpful to know there was a plan. That doesn't alleviate my heightened concerns about the possibility of cross-contaminating hostas if the vendor did not sterilize the cutting equipment between each plant. (Ans since I have not seen any strong evidence to indicate that this practice was used, I will choose to err on the side of caution.) Yes, I agree, we should be habitual in our monitoring of all new plants received until they have passed that quarantine period. That period, however, can be as long as 7 years before visual symptoms appear, and I am personally unwilling to wait 7 years with this particular batch given the leaf cutting - which we all know is a primary method of spreading HVX. While searching that "other" hosta forum for information, I saw several recent threads that seemed to indicate that newly contaminated hostas (such as might occur while cutting leaves off a healthy hosta without cleaning HVX sap from an infected plant) would probably have enough HVX during their second year to test positive using the Agdia strips. I don't consider myself hysterical about HVX - merely aware, informed and prepared to act in appropriate situations. I have over 550 hostas, mostly acquired during the past seven years. To date I have tested two hostas which appeared suspect to me, both of which tested negative. And according to discussions on another hosta forum, Agdia strips are widely considered to be 99% effective with extremely low false positive or negative rates. A new piece of disturbing news about HVX: Dr. Lockhart is apparently now recommending that you NEVER plant a new hosta in a spot where a diseased hosta was removed, as his 18-month study showed HVX was still present after the plant's removal. As most of us are aware, the recent thought was you were safe after a year or so. And back in 2004, it was stated you could plant immediately since the virus couldn't possibly sustain itself outside the plant. So we are continuing to learn about this very unfortunate disease. So, for what it's worth to others who are trying to decide what to do with their new purchases, I have decided to do the following. Given how difficult it has been for me to locate Velvet Moon and Paradise Joyce, I will pot them up and enjoy them in my screen porch this season. If they survive over-wintering in my unheated garage this winter, I will wait for them to leaf out next summer and then test them with Agdia strips. If they are positive, out they go, right in the pots they are planted in. If they are negative, current research would say they are "safe", and I will likely plant in locations where they can be removed at some future point with ease should symptoms appear down the road. I will probably do the same with Royal Flush and LS Babyface, although I won't bother to test them if either PJ or VM tests positive - they'll hit the trash immediately. Those plants are fairly available through other reliable vendors, but I'll hold off on chucking them until I have reasonable evidence to do so. Lesson learned for me personally - I am not comfortable purchasing mutilated hostas, even if the vendor believes he has a justifable reason for doing so. But since the plants are here, I will take additional reasonable precautions to protect my existing hosta collection given the significant opportunity for HVX contamination introduced by the leaf cutting.

No, they are NOT ideal companion plants. Tall bearded iris should be planted in full sun and well-drained soil, and should not be mulched. They require special care such as treatment to prevent iris bores and sprayed with fungicide to prevent iris leaf-spot disease. In addition, bearded iris need divided every three or four years to eliminate over-crowding and produce good bloom. Hostas, on the other hand, do well in dappled shade or indirect sunlight. They appreciate frequent watering and mulch. Hostas should be treated for slug prevention, which is not a problem for irises. One final note...and this is my personal opinion... I don't think the foliage of irises inter-planted with hostas makes a visually pleasant landscape. The companion plants I prefer in my hosta glade are ferns, lilies, and a variety of woodland plants.

To moccasinlanding: I assure you it is Blue Mammoth I have tried in the past. To Ken: I have yet to find anything left at the door; although I had to adapt quickly back in 2011 when my mother brought to me BOTH T-Rex and Blue Mammoth. And yes I smiled and did say thank you very nicely. Having both WAS NOT my plan at that moment. She is threatening to "share" some of her Mouse Ears next summer (not sure what variety she is talking about as of yet. Honesty I do get nearly 100% sun for about 2 to 3 hours from about noon in my garden (working on eliminating that next year). 'Popcorn' simply dropped its green in August; it did have an intense gold yellow as it faded. I thought that moment was exciting. 'Vulcan' took off, and exploded into growth making every other hosta look bad last year. 'Gorgon' was a close second in that department. 'Frosted Mouse Ears' and 'Holy Mouse Ears' each seem to have settled in with polite growth. 'Xanadu Empress Wu' was planted in August, and that even tried to take off by growing leaves that were twice the size of what it came with. In short I am expecting a 86% (18 out of 21 plants) survival rate next spring with only three plants not coming up (as mentioned at my blog). Those being ... Blue Mammoth, Itsy Bity Spider, and Popcorn. Naturally they have the option of surprising me, and appearing on cue. Everything else looked in good shape when I cut everything back Mid-October for their long winter nap! Finally Ken, to be honest, I do have a few theories as to why my 2013 survival rate was 56% (from 18 hosta to 10 hosta). I can't discuss those until I see what happens next spring (2014; trying to be objective here folks). Hint keep watching my blog for a lengthy narrative on that topic there. Peter Kelley St. Paul, MN USA