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botanybabe

A big, fat disappointment

botanybabe
14 years ago

Well folk,

Yesterday I took a trip to a nursery about 20 miles away hoping they'd have some hosta. They were closed. Then I drove around the boon docks for a while and found nothing.

An hour later, I remembered that we have a Walnut Ridge nursery, I think it is a nursery that is regional to several states in the midwest, and it's for the most part, a quality nursery. So I went there. They had several tables of hosta, and a few cultivars that I wanted.

However, while looking through them I found a Stilletto that had obvious signs of HVX.

I found one of the assistant managers and showed it to him. He pretended to know what it was. Then, after we talked a bit he said, "Tell me, I can't remember how this is spread." I explained it to him. He then said, well the hostas on this table, are tissue cultures that we acquired as very small plants, and we transplanted them into these pots about 2 years ago, and we didn't use tools, we used our fingers." At first I was happy with this news because I figured the risk of HVX would be low with these. I picked up a nice specimen of Radiant Edger. I looked at it carefully and found HVX in many of the second-flush leaves. My heart sank.

I walked away and bought a couple of ferns and a giant magenta-colored colocasia. No hostas that day, or any other day from that nursery. What a shame. They had War Paint and Dick Ward and I'd been looking for them both. But I'm glad you good folk here have taught me to recognize HVX when I see it.

Every nursery in S. Indiana is contaminated as far as I can tell. Looks like I need to take a road trip to hosta country up there in No. Illinois.

Lainey

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