Should it happen again this year, take some pictures and post them...

Pieter

I've seen slugs do that...regularly in fact.

I work hard to get the thicker-leaved hostas the slugs won't destroy. They still work at the stalks.

That is the very reason I still apply slug bait.
Gayle

slugs attack from the outside..

poster seems to imply there are some borers involved.. and no.. i never heard of that ...

ken

Could be they started from the outside and made their way inside and cozied up in there--lazy buggers sittin' and snackin' away.
Check for a multitude of sow/pill bugs around the base etc. That's what I found to be the biggest culprit in my garden with the more slug-resistant
varieties being munched on! I used Sevin Spray on them at the time. I think the dust might be more effective though and plan on getting some of it soon!
Grrrr--and I use to think those little 'roly poly's were so cute--like tiny armadillo's!

Completely agree with Gayle. Before I got serious about slug hunting, I used to lose a lot of leaves to fallen petioles thanks to slugs hollowing out the petiole stalk and weakening it. Somewhere I have pics of them in action- I'll see if I can find it.

Can't find the "caught in the act" pic, but trust me, this type of damage WAS cause by slugs in my gardens. Walking around with a pump sprayer with a wand filled with ten parts water to one part ammonia and sticking the wand down into the center of the petioles helps stop this...particulary on wet soggy days like slugs like. I focus on the upright growers, since those are the ones that look terrible when the petioles get eaten like this. This is more of a problem late in the season for me, when I tend to slack off on slug control and their numbers get out of hand.

and col's pic.. happened from the outside ... not a borer

ken

I had the same thing happen to a couple of leaves/stalk on a Striptease. I don't believe it was slug damage since I've yet to see a slug yet this year - snails yes,but no slugs and the snails haven;t caused any damage so far.

Whatever it was attacked the stalk and caused the leaf to fall down. I can't tell if the stalk was chewed or not but it looked as though it was "snapped" like a string bean.

Pillbugs are extremely rare around here so I doubt this was the culprit. There was just bare soil around the striptease because the previous week I removed a green reversion from the main p[ant so not much of a hiding place gor slugs or whatever. I tried taking a picture but don't think it helps since I haven't figured out how to take close-ups.

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Have you had a lot of wind, squirejohn?

Janice,

That's what it looks like to me also. Sometimes leaves fold over on themselves and snap like that. That damage is right where the petiole ends and the rest of the leaf begins. My S&S does that with a few leaves in the wind, because the leaves are so heavy.

Steve

We haven't had any wind and I tried to bend down an undamaged leaf leaf to see if it would break - it did not.
I looked at the break in the photo above with a jeweler's loupe but couldn't see anything that would help ID the cause. I took another photo that's clearer (attached - in situ) and saw two other leaves with very small slits ( about 1/4 or less in size than the photo) near the petiole leaf junction. These leaves haven't fallen down yet so I'll continue to watch them and see what happens.
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So leafwatcher...lots of ideas, theories, and descriptions. Anything posted above resonating with you? Anything completely off-base?
Gayle

I've had a problem like some have described. For me, there are two things going on. I'm not sure they are related. One is that the end of each leaf is eaten where it touches the ground. The other is that something is cutting the stem off and then the leaf is eaten.

I called the radio guy who first suggested slugs. I told him my experience with slugs is that the damage is random holes on the leaves, not just on the end. He suggested I might have lazy slugs. He then suggested pill bugs and sevin dust. That didn't seem right, so I called the extention service. He suggested a systemic granular insecticide and using BT a couple times in the next week in case it was cut worms.

So I put Diatomacious (sp?) earth and BT on the plant. Then I used the systemic. I've been careful to avoid washing the powders off until the systemic could take hold (7 to 10 days). The DE should kill the pill bugs. The BT should get the cut worms. The systemic should get most anything.

I'm still not sure what it is, but I seem to have stopped it.

Any other suggestions?

bkay

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Well none of the pictures above are exactly what I noticed last year.. The stalks that I had trouble with became more translucent because the light was showing thru them, you could see the tunnels down inside. there would be an exit entry hole.. and over a week or so the stalk would start to bend and usually end up dropping the leaf down to the soil.

I don't recall if the holes leading to the tunnels were all high or low on the plant..I think it varied...

i will watch for it, but I hope I don't see it !

Leafwatcher--that IS a puzzlement! I hope you find out what the cuprit is--soon and can address
the issue successfully!

bkay--GARantee, you that what's nibbling your leaves ARE pill bugs! Whereever the leaf rests,
they sit and nibble that pattern between the veins, scalloped, like your pic. shows! At least that's
what's doing it in MY garden--caught them in the act before! They'll do it to the petioles, too!

I hadn't thought of this before talking to the master gardener at the extention service, but the granular systemic insecticide should work. I had to go to the nursery for it, as Home Depot didn't have it. It should work on any chewing insect, although it takes 7 to 10 days to get into the plant.

bkay

Oh, and thanks Hey_J. I was always told that pill bugs only ate decaying matter and would not harm your plants. They were clearly there and quite visible, but it didn't occur to me that they were the culprit. I actually didn't believe the radio gardening guy when he told me it was pill bugs.

Thanks for the info.

bkay

I don't know if your granular systeimic insecticide will work on pillbugs since there not insects - they're crustaceans I think.

You're right squirejohn. It's a crustacean. I just looked it up and found this on the Univ. of Kentucky site:

"Various insecticides sold in hardware/lawn and garden shops are effective, including Sevin, Dursban, diazinon, and permethrin (Spectracide Bug Stop). Treatment can be accomplished with a compressed air (pump up) or hose end sprayer."

This is from 1998 and some of these insecticides are no longer available, but Sevin is. I would think that DE would also work as it would cut the shell and dry out the animal, but am not an expert on organic treatments. That's one of the things I used and they are gone - at least I can't see them anymore.

Bkay

BKay,

What's the name of the systemic that you used?

Steve

It's Bonide Systemic Granules Insect Control. Bonide is out of NY.

bkay

I had forgotten I started this thread.. THANKFULLY I didn't see a single plant with the problem I had last year...

Fingers crossed for next ! I am hoping my newly added tree frogs will patrol the Hosta diligently next year ;)

Last year I had several plants with leaf stems eaten in and broken off. I used Bug-Geta Plus close to the crowns and later sprayed with a Bayer Rose systemic insecticides. Those plants this year have all their leaves upright.
Bernd

Ahhh, I'm glad to know the Bonide products are good. I never saw it in Alabama, but at AgWay the other day (in Mass), I ran across lots of their products. I picked up their SLUG MAGIC which is now all around every pot of hosta so I can get rid of those slimy things before the hosta die back for the winter.

I also found a big sack of diatomaceous earth, safe for pets it says, a different brand name. The Bonide Slug Magic also says it is safe around pets and wildlife.

Will DE harm the frogs as they burrow down for the winter?