Thank you all. I'm considering all of your suggestions. Steve, I'm in Dover, Delaware. As for water, it has been dry here and I watered this area shown in the photo for about 2 hours yesterday with an occilating sprinkler. And I'm pretty alert to the water requirements. So I think I'm OK with the water situatiion. Fertilizer may be the problem. Tell me what you think about alfalfa pellets. I buy these in the 50 lb sacks at the animal feed store and use them on my roses and daylilies. I'm talking about horse food here. Do you think these would be good on the shade garden, too? Perhaps a combination of Plant Tone and alfalfa pellets. Paul in Minnesota, thank you for posting your pics. The second photo of your golden tiara with the scapes just emerging is a beautiful plant. I would be delighted with such a plant in midseason. However, my Golden Tiara plants look sickly by midseason, and are no longer attractive, even though the June Hosta right nearby look fabulous. (June and Sagae are my absolute favorites - they put a smile on my face every time.) So, perhaps is it a heat problem with the Golden Tiaras? Well, no matter, i've already decided. Alfalfa pellets and Plant Tone are going on the shade garden. thank you all again. I will post more pics of this spot in my yard a little later in the season. Christine

"Here's the worst part - my garden is an uplifting, contentment-filled space brimming with positive energy, and now it is diseased." I understand that sentiment. The only HVX plant I had was in a pot and I just had this repulsive feeling wanting to get rid of it right away. But you should know that it is a lot easier to spread the virus to other plants at this time of year. If it is possible for you to wait until after the plants have flowered to dig them out then this is something you should consider. This is probably because plant sap is running higher at this time of year. The biggest problem with digging out the plants would be if they are mature specimens in close proximity to other Hosta. That's the most difficult situation because the roots are likely intermingled. When you dig out the diseased plant you inadvertently wound the roots of the surrounding plants making them vulnerable to the virus. If it were me. I would wait until the fall. I would get an old rusty shovel that I didn't care about to use and spray paint it orange. About a month before the digging date I would give the Hosta a Roundup bath, completely protecting the surrounding plants with tarps or plastic drop cloths. After about a week give it another shot of Roundup to make sure it's really really dead. Then let it sit for another two weeks before digging. When you dig it, try to get all of the roots and soil that you can. You won't be able to get it all, because some microscopic plant pieces or root pieces will remain, but try. All of the soil and the plant go in the trash. Bring in new soil for that hole and plant something else that you like in that space. HVX only affects Hosta. Right now we don't know how long you have to wait before a Hosta can be planted in that space. We know it's at least two years. Wash everything you used with a 10% bleach solution, getting all the soil off of the tools. Throw away the gloves. You can get your garden free of HVX. You just have to plan and do it carefully. Steve

I'm posting the following information from W. George Schmid: "The short answer is that all hostas are rhizomatous plants. A rhizome is a horizontal stem of a plant found underground, sending out roots and shoots from its nodes. Rhizomes may also be referred to as creeping rootstalks. If a rhizome is composed of several rhizomatous, interconnected creeping roots, each piece may be able to give rise to new plants. This is a process known as vegetative reproduction and is used by gardeners to propagate hostas because the resulting plants are clones of the original plant. This process is called root (or rhizome) division. When digging different cultivars, the rhizome is often one contiguous mass, but it may also be a mass of smaller interconnected tubular rhizomes that look like a mass of stolons, but these are not stolons in the strict sense. A stolon is similar to a rhizome, but, unlike a rhizome which is the main stem of the plant, a stolon is a branch that sprouts from an existing stem, has long internodes, and generates new shoots at the end. In general, rhizomes have short internodes; they send out roots from the bottom of the nodes and new upward-growing shoots from the top of the nodes. It is also a method of reproduction for plants. Stolons, on the other hand, are branches of the plant which grow at the soil surface or below ground and can form new plants at the ends or at the nodes. Stolons are often called runners. Imprecisely, they are stems that run atop or just under the ground; more specifically, a stolon is a horizontal shoot from a plant that grows on top of or below the soil surface with the ability to produce new clones of the same plant from buds at the tip. Some hostas have differently shaped rhizomes depending on which parent species is involved. In the case of 'Golden Tiara', H. nakaiana was the parent. This species has a rhizome that has a fast growth rate and quickly makes spreading interconnected runners, forming one rhizome. This is still called a rhizome, but one that is sending out smaller, usually elongated parts of stem roots and shoots. H. sieboldii is another example, which has a non-contiguous looking, spreading rhizome connected together. Looking like stolons, they are not, but are elongated rhizomes that produce plants from the nodes. Such spreading rhizomes seen in hostas often have a fast growth rate. Rhizomes often grow into very large contiguous masses and the center part of such rhizomes dies, while the still living parts of the rhizome form a ring-shaped plant. Gardeners often replace the dead center part with a living rhizome to maintain the huge plant as a single clump. Eventually the ring-shaped rhizome breaks up and forms a ring on non-connected plants, all with their own rhizome. Only one hosta species I know of has a stoloniferous habit: H. clausa var. stolonifera. I named it that way because plants with stolons or stolon-like rhizomes are called stoloniferous. This species variety is a special form that occurs in the dense cover of native willows (Salix) and never develops flower stalks in the dense cover. Its method of propagation is solely vegetative by way of creeping rhizomes. This form is also grown in Western gardens and has been called provisionally H. clausa var. stolonifera. According to Chung (1990), this form is biologically one and the same species, but shows local adaptation to an ecology that prevents propagation by seeds." Thanks, George

it grows like a weed .. AFTER IT GROWS THE ROOTS IT NEEDS .. which can taek one to 5 to 7 years [for giants] even on this weed... i wouldnt expect much the first year ... next year.. watch out ... what they said about depth .... looks like its on the edge of pavement ... the retained heat at night.. may be problematic .. in how pretty this thing is in late summer or fall ... seems shape is off for GT ... maybe i will walk by mine and compare ... it should be more rounder ... more heart shaped ... but that could be the maturity we are talking about ... and the edge should be much more yellow ... but that might be a sun/stress thing ... ken