Ask Jon if he wants it?

Here is info from the American Hosta society. Bag it and throw it in the garbage, NOT in the compost bin.

American Hosta Society HVX information.

-Babka

Babka, gotcha.

I literally just planted this hosta in May and it's planted in a vole-proof cage in the ground. I'm thinking I'm going to just pull up the whole cage and toss all of it. I know to not plant another hosta in that hole afterwards.

I guess I'm grateful that I caught it early and before spreading it to other plants. I've plenty of room to put some other shade lover in its place.

Buy some poison Ivy Round Up or buy some generic (or Round Up) glyphosate concentrate and mix up an 18% concentration and spray it top and bottom of all the leaves.

Once it is killed you can dig it up. Make a big hole, fill it with fresh dirt and plant a hosta smaller than the hole you dug out and you can be 100% sure it will be impossible for the new planted hosta to become infected.

If you follow this and buy a replacement hosta from a reputable source and it gets HVX I will send you a check for what it costs.

Jon

Ken,

Soil with HVX plant debris and root material was found to remain infective for at least two years. (Note that two years was simply the duration of this research project. The actual time of remaining infectivity could be longer.)

Link

Jon

Throw the infected one away and put a nice Heuchera or Tiarella or Astilbe in that place :-)

There's room enough to become an hosta addict...

Karin, I think that's exactly what I'm going to do. I have a big clump of Japanese Painted Fern that I need to divide this fall and part of it will go where this bad hosta was living.

I'll probably clean up the vole-cage with a bleach solution soak and then use it to plant the fern or Heuchera/Heucherella.

When digging up an infected Hosta, I put a large trash bag over the plant to minimize my touching the leaves and the leaves touching other plants. I don't think you have to worry about your Hosta's leaves touching other plants. After it is dug up, just turn the bag over, keep the whole Hosta in the bag and to the trashman it goes.

If you got it locally maybe show /tell the store you got it at they are selling infested plants too

Almosthooked, I got it from a Big Box store....lesson learned. I'm not sure going back 2 months later and saying something would make a difference. Most employees I encounter in those stores aren't really aware of things like this or don't care, even the gardening center managers. I just know I won't buy hostas from them again.

The thing I'm concerned about is all but 1 of my other hostas were purchased there too. This was before I started stalking this forum and even knew about HVX.

You might also want to contact your State Agriculture Department and ask to have the big box store inspected. If you still have your test showing the positive result, you could send it to them as well.

Unfortunately, you should probably assume that all the hostas you purchased at the BBS are HVX positive, since they are all from the same source and were doubtless all dug and processed mechanically, which is usually how the virus is spread. You could wait until next spring to test each one if you want to be sure.

Just watch them, but as you've got plenty of room between them and not all hosta from stores have to be infected I wouldn't worry too much. Worst case scenario is that you have to start again with a new hosta bed, but your garden seems to be big enough:-) Just put this Japanese fern between them and wait what's going to happen.

Do you think I should just test the others as well? I have 7 others that I purchased from the same Big Box store at the same time. I guess it would be better to know this now than really fall in love with them in a few years and then find out.

If you have the test kits you don't have to do just one plant per kit. You can put 3 or 4 small pieces of leaves from 3 or 4 different hostas in one pouch and if you get a negative result but still get a good control line then it will give you some peace of mind without using up all your test kits. If you get a positive, though, you would need to go back through one at a time testing each one, or just bite the bullet and get rid of them all at that point if they worry you that much. I'm not saying that's what you need to do, it is all up to you.

Good luck.

Chris

Chris beat me to it :-) about suggesting the combined test (more than one hosta). I became aware of this method when one of my vendors happened to be testing on a day that I was shopping - they tested 3-5 at a time. Useful tip.

Hmmmm...Chris/Josesphines good to know. Those test strip kits are expensive! Think I will do just that...