Arcy, my leaves are still in my beds.. Next week the temps are supposed to be back down in the 20's in the evening, I may even put some straw over th early risers..

Do you have a garden map? I did one last fall so I don't have to worry quite so much about losing my markers...

arcy, what is the *stomp deal all about* (??)

Phyl- stomping is actually just what it sound... if you stomp a hosta, just as the "eyes" are starting to come up, or grind it with your heel, or cut the eyes off at the base, or tell your husband to rototill the garden and forget to tell him to watch your emerging hostas, (can you tell that one happened to me), it all has the same effect on the hosta. It forces the hosta to send up new, usually multiple "eyes', as a response. The new eyes will be smaller, but you'll probably get more. Someone else feel free to jump in if you want to be more scientific....

It's really hard for me to do this on purpose....

When you do it on purpose, I think it's called Rossing.

Rossizing is when a knife is inserted into the base of the petiole and pushed down into the crown. The cut surface then dries and forms a callous tissue. New vegative buds then form along the cut and produce new plants.
This method is attributed to Henry Ross of Ohio.

Stomping is when you actually go out and stomp, or intentionally step on the Hosta.

Yes, I have a map and pictures and copious notes...which are not necessarily accurate!!

We too willl have frost/snow this week, mine are all still asleep, PTL!!

Raking the leaves opens the soil to warm which causes the plants to emerge early. This is the most dangerous time for your plants, freeze/thaw problems.

And when you rake off the leaves you are taking away the soil building which is the best thing you can do for any plant.

Why would you do such a crazy thing?

Last fall when I rearranged my hosta bed, I buried a couple of plain old bricks flush in the ground in strategic areas for stepping stones. Since they are just regular brikcs, they're not as big as a typical commercial stepping stone, so they don't draw the eye away from the plants at all. (I have small feet -- size 6 -- so the small bricks work for me.) I know that I can safely step on the bricks without squooshing any of my hosta crowns. :o) Also, since the soil is so soft, stepping on the bricks keeps me from leaving size-six-dents all over the hosta bed.

As for the "Why would you do such a crazy thing?" question, one thing to keep in mind is that one person's "leaves" are another person's "LEAVES!!!!!" . Not all yards are created equal!

My hosta bed is under a huge oak tree and in a corner made up of our deck and our garage. Leaving six inches of leaf-buildup there all during the rainy spring would result in a huge rotting moldy mess, and I did not go through all the trouble to move the rose, move the peony, (yes, the weirdo before us planted a rose AND a peony in a shady corner under an oak tree!) build a retaining wall, haul in dirt, divide and move hostas, buy more hostas, and divide and move the new hostas -- I didn't do all that work just to have them all mold to death.

Not to mention I'd have 348 billion baby oak trees from all the friggin' acorns if I didn't do some spring cleaning. ;o)

"Not to mention I'd have 348 billion baby oak trees from all the friggin' acorns if I didn't do some spring cleaning. ;o)"

I suffer from maple seedlings, oak leaves fall late and are more of a problem. The best way to handle leaves is to mow them and leave them in place or put them where they will do good.

General statement is; leaves are good for the soil, BIG BUTT!!!!!!!!

Leaf blower! I don't leave the leaves in the beds either. They make nice snuggy places for voles to live.
Pam

The answer to WHY rake is SLUGS, gound covers that won't show, I worry about say bleeding heart type perennials. Will they come up through the leaves. My shade beds are among several OLD burr oaks. The leaf pack/sticks would get very deep. Too deep for my vines, creeping jenny? My Hosta are the main attraction in my gardens, but they are far from ALONE. Interesting about the early emersion. I have had trouble with this issue. I tell myself each winter, maybe this year I will let them be, but I can't help myself. They looked soooo deep/buried.

Arcy, the dicentra (bleeding hearts) would probably be ok coming up through leaves.
The following pic was taken last spring. This was a total accident. I always invert the big clay pots in my yard for the winter so they don't crack since they're too big and heavy to move. I forgot there was a bleeding heart planted underneath this particular pot. I guess the small stream of light coming through the drainage hole was enough for the plant to make its' way through.

Great visual, Shade. At a hosta seminar, Ran Lydell said his hostas came up thru a load of wood chips.

My shade gardens are about 10-15 feet deep and run the length of my yard about 120 feet. They start at the grass line and go back into the woods. I literally cleared and cut them out from a very overgrown weed infested "forest" that surrounds my home. The idea was to try and get a breeze to circulate and let the mosquitoes out. It got a way from me and now I have my yard almost surrounded in hosta and shade gardens. When I rake I start at the yard and move back into the woods. When finished I have a leaf berm that is two to three feet high,the entire length of my gardens. This way my husband knows when to stop when he is out "weed wacking" with the blade. The volunteer trees get cut back every few years to keep things thinned out. He can't tell a weed from an astilbe. At some point the raking will end as I will be too old and feeble to do it. Then we will see how things do. I too have stepping stones sprinkled through out my gardens, for weeding purposes. I made most of them myself, so I have flowers, bugs, just about any shape one can find a tray or pan for. My stepping stones are too buried in leaves and tree debre to find when I begin my raking and they would never emerge in the spring if I did not rake. So I rake early. There is usually a time when the frost is still in the ground but the top layers of leaves are not frozen down. This year we barely had winter. I bet the ground frost was half as deep as usual. I got only the front yard done before it got too cold again. It will be interesting to see if the plants in the back and side yard are behind the ones in front, if what esther says happens here too.

Besides the value to the soil of leaves they keep the soil cool in the spring suppressing early emergence, the most dangerous time and thing for hosta. There is no advantage in fact a disadvantage to raking except that it is the way you like it which trumps all the reasons to leave the leaves or is that left or maybe right. Who knows what is right anyway so leave them or left them.

Mildred Seaver piled leaves so deep in her yard that she had 3 levels of stepping stones buried in the yard.

I have pictures of an area that I piled leaves about 12 inch on top of hosta last fall, they are now 6 inches deep and I'll have pictures of the same area when they finally come up.

You don't get rid of slugs by raking, they will crawl back to the hosta, the only solution is 10% ammonia as a drench on the soil during th day.

I understand I am not removing slugs when raking. I rake so the slugs do not have a place to hide and breed. The ammonia has to touch them to be effective. If I am spraying leaves I do not get many slugs.

i keep trying to sort out *which* of the above is correct .. does drenching the soil work or not??? if there aren't any slugs there at the moment, what good does it do?
thanks, phyl
p.s. i have at least 3,693, 507 slugs & snails! (GRIN)

I've seen a few stray slugs already this season without even looking for them. Slugs hide in the mulch closer to the crown or in the eyes so that's where you should drench. If you dilute ammonia weaker than 10:1, I don't know that it'd be effect? Ammonia does not kill the eggs.

What DOES kill the slug eggs? I found them. I think I'll start a new thread for this subject.

Westy

why does this question never get answered?? (3 messages up) .. is it because there just *isn't* an answer?

Search slugs on the net and maybe you can find hatching temp for slugs. They appear about as soon as hosta appear. If you start drenching when you see hosta and do it about every 10 days 3 times then again in about 30 days it will take care of the slugs.