nope sun burn or frost burn some kind of tissue damage which caused the cells to die.. and dry out is it on the outer most leaves.. which were the first to emerge... the damage could have been done long ago.. but the tissue finally dried out ... so long ago .... that you have already forgotten you had a frost that you though nothing about at the time .... nems will not show in spring... they show in the high heat of summer.. whatever that is in your zone .... ken

What a bummer. Well, I got the two plantaginea from Seawright, Steve. Last September. They overwintered in the pots from the nursery. Then I potted them together as they began emerging. A new pot, new nursery soil, but I did not bare root them. I have the Lakeside Kaleidoscope which was sitting at the base of the plantaginea pedestal, and it is looking suspiciously nematodish too, but not as bad. It came from Seawright as well. The other plants acquired from there are looking fine. I do not know anything about tracking down the source of the foliar nematode problem, but I feel certain it was from the garden here. Where these plants overwintered they were covered in leaves, got rained on repeatedly, and it was not a really cold winter. Whether that factors in I cannot say, but it wasn't the sort of winter hosta expect to have. Steve, why do you think the plantaginea would be tissue cultured? Is that the way most of them enter the nursery trade, and are grown out only? I guess there might have been a fancy tag on the nursery pots (6" I think), but to be honest right now, I cannot remember a thing. I am so really distressed by this. I need to meditate a while and gather myself for strength required to deal with this problem. Thank goodness my DH is busy getting the shade frame ready for the cloth covering the Back Forty hosta corral. Then I can haul in the bark and compost load which was dumped on our drive over a week ago. I'm creating a mound and totally raised area where I can presently stage the pots in the sides and top of the mound. A bit later on, I should have the area civilized enough to think about planting some big guys directly into the (raised) soil and bark. Because my next load of stuff will be only pine bark. It has multiple uses, and looks really good. Lot of pine bark here in the south. Once they move to their new location, I can spread them apart more, and keep any water from splashing on other plants. I was guilty of washing falling blossoms off the leaves--bad idea I realize, should have used a round sable brush, long handled maybe. Monet would have done that, I bet. Ken, based on the presence of foliar nematodes this early in the year, what exactly does that tell you about my zone? A lot more than the temperature and zone number does? I'd appreciate your insight, because the measures I must take seem to require a decisive draconian approach. I need to eat breakfast. Not a happy camper today. :/ But.....I shall prevail, one way or another.

Whew!! Thanks guys! I was sweating because I do have other "keepers" planted nearby and was afraid it would spread. I'll yank out the badly affected leaves and see what happens. I'll have to admit--there HAS been a little hosta favoritism going on here...I'm not quite as diligent about keeping these watered as I am the ones I actually spent money on! But since they are so visible, I guess I need to step it up just a bit. Now, maybe I should still move them? I have lots of other Ventricosas in the yard that look much better than these, so it could be that the couple hours of sun they get is just too much for them. I'll replace them with a more sun-tolerant variety. Thanks again (SO relieved!!) Karen

I just posted this on the thread about Dr. Bonners soap. It seems hopeful to me. We'll see what happens later on this summer. I've been trying the soap/mouthwash treatment for 3 years. As I posted on another thread (?) it appeared semi-successful. The nematodes were not spreading to other plants. During the last 2 summer I just picked off the leaves as they showed up the damage. The damage also didn't seem to increase the next year. Some of them seemed actually better. This year I realized that spraying with a spray bottle down into the plants was fine but over the course of a summer (treating maybe a dozen plants) I refilled the spray bottle only two or three times. One small liter sized spray bottle treating 12 or so plants two or three times meant I was actually putting very little of the mix into the soil. In the spring this year I was still on the original 8oz bottle of the Dr. Bonner's soap. This was not enough. This year in the spring I began mixing it in a 4 liter (1/2 gallon ??) plastic milk jug. I HEAVILY poured it into the emerging eyes and repeated the treatment every 2 to 3 weeks in the spring and early summer. I used at least 2 full 4 liter jugs full for a treatment (maybe 3) I ran out of that first bottle of soap mid July so went a little longer to the next treatment - maybe 4 weeks. Here we are mid Aug. and so far there is not one leaf on any of the treated plants with nematodes. I know it's early and it may still show up but in the meantime a few other untreated plants are showing damage. This tells me that weather wise or what ever it is that determines the damage showing is already in place in my garden. I will treat the plants now showing damage and hope it works for next year. The soap is expensive $20 for the bottle here at the health food store. If that is a once in a year expense, it's worth it. It seems a lot less invasive than boiling the poor things.