I am no expert, which is a very easy sentence for me to say. I would back up carefully and head for the nearest exit. But on your way out teach the owners about bad stock. Blame vendors as many owners are touchy. They may not know. Wash your hands 3 times. That looks funky to me.

Infected for sure, maybe hvx.

I rarely buy local for this reason. Not that it does not happen on line but then you are dealing with reputable sellers whose small business depends on selling clean plants.

Thanks Paula….. I was looking for a second opinion and hope others still comment. I like this little nursery and generally buy hundreds of dollars worth of plants from them. When I was there the other day, I purchased potting soil and 6 lovely columbines. I also buy my geraniums, coleus, sweet potato vines and begonias there usually. I am sure they aren’t knowledge about HXV as they don’t sell many hostas. Maybe a handout would help.

debra

Thanks lindalana, we were posting at the same time.

debra

That gives me the heebie jeebies just looking at it! Funny that I have bought from my two good nurseries. I've never seen anything that alarms me yet and have always gotten good hostas. But I won't trust getting any from Lowes or HD. For all I know their vendors could be the same.

Lowe's carries some hosta labeled as Proven Winners in this area. I would trust those.

Local growers are often uninformed or non-caring about HVX. I don't buy hosta from local growers. They grow a variety of plants, so are not very informed about any specific plant variety.

bkay

I have some also that I’m questioning. Can you tell me if this is HVX? I believe it is August moon? They (3) are in an out of site neglected bed, and have been for years…I was going to pot some of these up but they’re not looking too good…. Should I shovel prune? Please advise, thank you..

Maybe caused from pure neglect?

Gardenho, from the picture, I think your August Moons have the normal puckering we expect with that hosta. I don’t see tissue collapse……if you took closer pictures of leaves that concern you we could tell for sure, but I don’t see anything to be concerned with here.

Now just to stand up for my little nursery……I stopped there yesterday with some printed materials to talk discreetly to the owner. When I asked her whether she knew about the virus, she said yes and asked me to show her the ones I was talking about. I showed her the hostas and to her credit she removed the entire tray from the sale area. She said the state inspector had been out recently and given approval. I said well she definitely missed the signs. She wasn’t sure if she had been out before those hostas arrived. Let’s hope so. We are in trouble if state inspectors are missing the signs. These hostas came from a supplier so she will need to contact them as well.

debra

Oh good! That’s all I see is puckering too so I wasnt sure. Thank you!!

I know that perhaps I'm a little late to get into this conversation, BUT, I'll be the odd-man out. What I'm showing you here looks frightfully similar to what's shown in the original post. And what I see here in one of 'Empress Wu's is frost damage. Not HVX.

Pieter

Well Pieter, knowing your own garden and the weather is really different when buying plants from who knows where. To me the original pics look heavily like tissue collapse. Your photo looks quite different from the ones I took, in my humble opinion. I don’t see an area on your EW where the leaf looks completely flat, a bit bumpy, but not flat. Thanks for chiming in, I do value your opinion and knowledge!

debra