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Removed top inch or so of soil from hosta with Southern Blight.

Esther-B, Zone 7a

6 years ago

I removed, with a small snow shovel, the mulch and about top 1" of soil from my poor Rainbow's End with the Southern Blight. Then I drenched a circle around the crown of the affected hosta of about 12" diameter with the Bayer Advanced fungicide solution, and drenched the sidewalk where I had temporarily placed the soil and mulch I removed with the same stuff, in case any spores were on the sidewalk from it. I saw that hiding under the soil I removed, there were a half-dozen new baby leaves waiting to emerge which still looked healthy. Should I put new soil from a brand new bag on top of those baby leaves and 1 slender root to replace the soil I removed?

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Comments (3)

ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
6 years ago
how much did you spend on the goo.. to save a hosta that cost how much???

ken
Esther-B, Zone 7a
Original Author
6 years ago
This is a gorgeous Rainbow's End specimen. I never saw one so big as this one before the blight struck. The "goo", as you call it, cost less than this hosta, AND it is concentrated, so you get quite a lot of solution from this bottle. What if any surrounding hostas also get infected? Then I am ready.

I think that you forget I have a small garden in front of my co-op building, that I dug out by hand from the crummy contractor fill by hours of back breaking work. And, I've had to battle the micromanaging co-op manager and the sleazy "landscape workers" destroying items in my garden, ignorant neighbors who have placed 99 cent store kitsch items in the garden, and ignorant neighbors who attempted to use my garden as an ash tray and/or a place to hide soda bottles until they redeem them. THEY are GONE, but the garden is still here.

I don't have a big suburban lawn where I can plant dozens or hundreds of hostas. Each one is my "baby" in my limited space, and each one is oohed and aahed by the whole block. So yes, I will go to great lengths to save this beautiful hosta and prevent others from succumbing.

Now, my original question, Ken: should I put some new soil from a fresh bag of it over the baby hosta shoots I uncovered, or leave it excavated? There is one thin root which was exposed, right at the surface. Thank you.
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bk....I have had an issue with my Undulate Albomarginata over the last year that looks related to southern blight. Last summer the leaves started dying off much like yours in the picture you posted and went from nice and full to about 1/2 gone by fall. This year it came back weaker and I am now getting leaf die off again. No leaf curl or anything like that. It's just one or two at a time and a slow process. Yesterday I pulled it all out of the pot. The media was still very damp from our last rain less than a week ago. There are some of the orange balls in the media but not a huge amount. I washed off the roots, they all look healthy, firm and white with no odor, but not as full or long as what they probably should be for a three plus year old plant. It was one of my first hosta and I definitely potted it way too large. I repotted it all in two smaller pots and will see what happens. The black spots are just something that fell on the leaves.
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Yep. That's southern blight. Do NOT till the bed until you have removed the soil from around the area and thrown it away. Replace with fresh soil. Make sure to disinfect all tools used in a way that prevents potential spread of the organism. I worked in a lot of organic matter this spring and drenched with B. amyloliquifaciens and B. subtilis and use a lot of coffee grounds (which supposedly are a food source that various Trichodermas like) in the bed where I had it last year. So far, so good. Luckily for me, and, it seems, for you, southern blight doesn't strike until very late, but the down side of that is that I won't know for sure that my efforts have been successful until the end of the season. If they're not, I will try grafting with Maxifort next year. One thing that my efforts seems to have helped is that the bed where I had bacterial wilt problems last year doesn't seem to have those problems this year. Of course, it could also be that what I'm growing there is a variety less prone to the disease. But that's encouraging for me, as it's very hard to find a rootstock that resists both bacterial wilt and southern blight.
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*Chris of Hallson's Gardens reply to this linked post (first reply) is great: http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/2031433/hosta-blight Oh my... such an unfortunate delay for the mail. It seems to happen to me too, when you need something that is not locally available... somehow it takes eons to arrive. My caveat: I do not have personal experience with fungicide beyond 10% bleach bath- just this info linked below: http://www.hostalibrary.org/articles/SBarticle.htm Per the article linked above: Under the section "My Strategy" paragraphs 4-7... you do not need to dig up the hosta at this point. The Fungi is only at the top layer of soil. The article emphasizes that Southern Blight is like a weed and the main thing for next time is prevention. If it already has southern blight, the damage will be considerable... but about 1/4 have survived for the author. * If there are no little brownish/reddish balls around the base and soil you can drench crown and soil area with Bayer Advanced. * If the Southern blight has set seed/little balls, then first is careful cleanup of any tiny balls - the Sclerotium rolfsii seeds- and removal of top inch of soil Sclerotium rolfsii effected leaves and (discard into a bag seal it and trash it). Then you can drench the area. You can keep an eye on it and dose it again if symptoms arise and it is needed. Next year it may try to grow again in that area.
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Southern Blight attacked The Razor’s Edge last week. I pulled all the detached leaves and drenched it with fungicide. Every leaf came off. What’s left is blooming now. I think the scapes are shorter than normal. The question is does the fungicide or the virus cause the change in the leaf shape and scape height that people have noticed. I have a science experiment going on in one of my biggest most densely planted beds that has experienced several incidents of SB this spring. This bed was the 2014 hospital bed and also the bed where any temporarily homeless plants live so it has a lot of companion plants, too. The bed is sloped and the first Hosta to succumb was Punky. Those stupid little round balls that are the fruiting bodies of SB roll downhill in the rain. They are tiny and it’s easy to miss one. After Punky, the SB attacked a stand of columbine and Maui Buttercups. I caught that early enough that I saved several of the leaves on MB. Then I noticed a dead streak through a stand of iris cristata from SB. After cleaning that up I drenched the entire bed with a preventative solution of the fungicide I use, Prostar. So every Hosta and plant has been treated with fungicide. Next spring we’ll see if everything is deformed or only the ones that were attacked by SB.
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josephines167 z5 ON Canada
6 years ago
Esther, you are a dedicated gardener/ hosta lover and I just love that! As far as the baby shoots go, I would cover the root with fresh soil....it's so conducive to good root growth. I've saved a handful of one-root hostas and take pleasure in "saving" them and watching them grow. May your baby shoots, and your RE flourish in your garden. :D
Esther-B, Zone 7a thanked josephines167 z5 ON Canada

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