Your hosta pictures are great. Enjoyed your dividing pictures, and the results from the next year. One of my New Year Resolutions will be to take my camera with me often when I plan to work outside. I need more documentation for myself of my hostas. Connie

Things are different for us folks out here where it doesn't get really cold enough in Winter. There seems to be no rhyme or reason about which ones live or which ones decline. It probably has a LOT to do with the chill hours (below 40 degrees). I have a Halcyon from 1999 that I divide every 3 yrs or so, and it does fine along with several others that I bought in 2001. Mine are all in pots, as we have a California small yard with a Japanese garden. When you purchase a new one, it will probably do well for you for about 3 years using stored up energy. Then depending on conditions it will do whatever...keep going, or whither. I've tried keeping them drier (covered atrium in winter) or let them get winter rains. I've re-potted them in 70%bark/30 compost. Drainage is not a problem for me. Some still just rot and die, or get mites. I even subscribed to the Hosta Hybridizers Group when they first formed to get as much info on growing conditions as I could. But as you will note, there are folks here on the forum who live in IDEAL hosta weather areas, and they lose them too. So don't let the loss of one hosta discourage you. There was a poster here a few years back who was back East but who couldn't get Blue Ice to grow, after numerous tries. I wanted to send her some of mine, but after 4 years, mine died too. I got a new one in 2005 and it is doing great. Just keep up with the Sluggo, or they'll be toast overnite. Those folks back East don't know abour our escargo... Amonia (yeah right!) NOT. (j/k for you peeps who haven't seen 1" snails eat a whole 15" hosta leaf overnite.) -Babka

So one guy on some board thinks he had a borer in his hosta.... Many others who have been growing thousands of plants for dozens of years have seen not heard of anything like that. Chances are pertty well beyond calculation that iris borers are NOT attacking your hosta. Many kinds of bugs, slugs, or critters of one sort or another may have taken a bite out of a petiole and caused a bit of rot where it bit. And the chances are enormous that what caused your hosta to have a bad spot in the crown was the uneven spring we had. And digging it up to look at, drying it on the drive way and dipping it in bleach won't help it. Put it back in the ground, shelter it from the sun and wind for a couple of weeks and water it. It will never grow if you keep messing with the roots. Chances are that you caused as much damage as any borer might have. Linda C

Hard to say, but it looks like the wounds are already sealed off indicating older damage as smorz alluded to above. I know not all rabbits are created equal, but the ones here stop bugging the hosta even before they reach the stage yours are at. tj