Few hosta will grow in 100 percent sunlight... most will do just dandy in full sun 6+ hours of sunlight as long as the hot hot afternoon sun is left out of the picture... you know the hot summer sun you are warned against for causing sun burns and skin cancer... well hostas don't much like it either...go outside from like 1-6ish in the afternoon and see where the sun hits the majority of this time period... this is where you don't want to plant hostas....
John

Living in the zone you do, you need responces from southern gardeners. My zone is 4/5. Hopefully they will help you more than I can. Sun is a real problem for your zone.

Connie

Hosta can grow in full sun up here in the north, but NOT down there in the south. Your sun is just too intense.

Most of our southern GardenWebbers will tell you they have to grow their hosta in pots and in deep shade.

There are a few GWers from TX that should be able to offer some insight.

No, I don't think they will grow in the sun. They will fry instead. I have one that is generally described as liking some sun called Sun and Substance. It got about an hour of really late afternoon sun (like 6:00 - 7:00 PM) for those few weeks around the summer solstice when the sun is at it's northern most position.

Photos are below. Keep in mind they are under a pecan tree and are getting sun only at a steep angle very late in the afternoon.

On the bright side, there are tons of things you can grow in ths sun. Not many things do well in the shade here. After impatiens, holly and ivy, you run out of choices.

If you are interested, Smith County (Tyler is in Smith Co.) Extention service did some hosta trials about 10 years ago. The County agent sent me the data with the hostas that did best for them (you probably have similar soil to Smith County). He also sent me a link to Tony Avent, who does hostas in the Carolinas. He has compiled a list of hostas that do well in the heat. I have a list of varieties that did well for the Dallas Arboretum (they have a trial going on now, too), but we have a different kind of soil than you. All the trials were done in ground. The Smith County agent said they planted them under pine trees.

Let me know if you are still interested after learning hostas won't work in ths sun, and I'll find the lists and post them for you.

bkay

Sun and Substance scorched leaves
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Unknown Green sun scorched leaf
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bkay, hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it looks to me as if your S&S has HVX, look at the hi-lited area below, as well as the mottling a little lower @ the 7 o'clock position.

Pieter

Its awful late in the season to be telling somebody that lol... bkay does your new growth earlier in the season have any of these characteristics?
John

John.... Bkay was very concerned about this and other hosta that he purchased from big box stores. He shared that in another post. Sum & Substance is one that shows little to no visible signs of HVX. I think Pieter has a very keen eye to have observed these signs.

Bkay---in light of this, you may want to get some of those Agdia strips.

Pieter, you're always full of good news. For the last three days, I've been looking at my NOID (Invincible?) flowers, trying to figure out if it is or it isn't Invincible as it was labeled.

This plant came from Lowe's in a pot, although I do have others that came bare-rooted from Sam's in a box with a Dutch sounding name on the box.

Melissa, you are right. This is the one I was worried about. Everyone said when I posted it earlier in the year that it was sun burned.

No, I didn't see any of this in the spring. However, I wasn't looking closely.

Thanks everyone. I'll get the strips.

bkay (Barbara)

Mom of 6,
I may be a little late in answering this, but as a grower in Zone 7, I wanted to tell you that I cannot grow anything in even half sun. My plants have burned. At the most some of them get 3 hours of direct sunlight, but almost all of them are in day-long dappled shade, and they are very happy with that.

chris

Yeah Melissa I know about the other post....I think I actually had commented on it as well.. hey bkay... look at your younger leaves now... if you have some... I'm assuming you do have some fresher growth... whats it look like? Melissa is from MN... she's used to a 2 month long growing season, shorter days and cooler summers...I've got golds now she would swear up and down were the most infected hostas she'd ever seen... the older top leaves look terrible... but down inside the new growth is beautifully perfect...mottling is a symptom of HVX.. yes indeed.. BUT.. mottling can also be caused simply by cell damage... from extreme sun/heat... kinda like a runny nose... most every flu comes with a runny nose... but just because someone has a runny nose, doesn't mean its the flu. Do you go to the doctor every time you have a runny nose? Should you spend 25 of your hard earned USD on a test strip everytime you see a little mottling on a hosta? I really hope you think not...lol....Seriously if I was rich... I'd test all my hostas for the hell of it... but if your like me.. doing that is not in the budget... especially when another division of SnS is a cheap buy... if you were close to a good hosta farm.. you could even arrange to buy a large division of multiple eyes more than likely... sum and substance is very common... agdia strips are very expensive and not 100 percent fool proof... there's always user error.. and in chemical test you would want to test twice and hope to get the same result twice... so thats like 50 bucks... you ever known a girl to get pregnant and take several DIY prego tests... and then still be crazy about getting to the doctor to take a real one to know for sure?
Where is Ken when we need him lol?
Keep the Peace
John

Here bkay is a minor case of inkbleed symptoms in a HVX infected hosta.. its really really hard to look over something like this... I really just don't see your SnS looking anything like this? Do you? Keep in mind though... there are a few varieties out there that are notorious for carrying HVX...SnS is one of them... I'm not saying your SnS is not infected... I'm just saying the symptoms aren't there....
John

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John, while inkbleed is probably the most common manifestation of HVX infection, it by no means is the only one. Check around for some pictures on the HL and other sources. Next to inkbleed, collapsing tissue is another often found form. Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference between tissue collapse and puckering though.

Re strips, there are NO false positives, and false negatives are typically due to user error. You're right, @ just over $5 a strip it does not seem too logical to use them on common cultivars such as S&S, but that's a personal call.

Pieter

John, the tests are NOT $25 a strip, they're about $5.50 each plus shipping, if you buy in a quantity of 5.

I agree if it's a young and cheap hosta, the strips aren't worth it. But if you have a larger or older plant that can't be replaced for under $15, I'd choose to order the strips.

I have used one (in our gift bag from the AHS convention) and it was SUPER simple to use. It'd be pretty hard to mess up.

I just can't imagine they could look good when grown in the sun down south. I'm in New England, and don't even think they look great when grown in a lot of sun up here. I don't care for the bleached out, crispy edge look. Maybe if you had an irrigation system to give them near constant water it could work?

Yeah obviously I don't know that much about the strips... I think what I priced at one point and time was field test strip kits or whatnot... and have been going by what I've read on here.... 5.50 isn't actually a bad price if you are concerned... but once again I don't think you should be concerned... Its too late in the season especially in Texas to be telling somebody their SnS with collapsed tissue has HVX... as if we as people don't have enough worries...and yes I know there are more symptoms to HVX than inkbleed... but inkbleed is the most common and generally the only thing you have to go by symptom wise this late in the season in the hot south....I just love how WE.. including myself... arrogant, brazen know it alls turned this into a HVX discussion...life sucks and then you die
John

I am in zone 5a, and some of my hostas which got that unusual 96 F sun have some halves of their leaves nearly blown off by the wind, can certainly not detect any HVX any longer. As I mentioned before, 3 or 4 of my hostas were affected by late frosts and right after had the appearance of having HVX, but new leaves were fine.
As I understand it now, we should see HVX already in May/June. And exclude those which had late frost.
Bernd

I was concerned about that SAS earlier in the year. Ken said he thought the damage was sunburn. He hoped Chris would see the post, but, if he did, he didn't comment. So, I already was somewhat concerned.

It's a really nice sized plant and I'm not willing to toss it without knowing for sure it's a problem. It's not replaceable, at least not around here. It's about 5 years old and has several eyes.

The part that bothers me is the two plants next to it. I kind of used the SAS as a shade for two other hostas, so they were in the drip line. I moved the Radiant Edger to another spot early, so it didn't get the bright sun, but did get dripped on from the SAS. The white edged mini got the same sun as SAS.

Denney from Avalon Acres said he thinks this is insect damange.
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Chris of Hallson's said this is some kind of virus, maybe not HVX. He said toss it. I haven't yet done that. It's also pretty old. It was one of my first hostas. So, ordering the test strips is a good idea anyway. Then the question comes up, what if it's negative to HVX? Do I toss it anyway?

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Thanks guys for all your help.

Bkay

Bkay, I wouldn't worry about the ones in the S&S drip line, that's not how HVX is spread. I agree with Denny, I see a lot of insect damage here at the moment from caterpillars, the green ones that come from the white cabbage moths. There's one Hyacinthina they have almost skeletalized, some leaves are naught but the remains of the veins.

Pieter

Well Barbara,
I guess you have to decide if you're willing to take a risk?
If you check around on Agdia's site, maybe there's something you could find. Perhaps they do testing to determine what virus a plant has? I dunno.

Since you do not know what virus it has or how it's spread, I'd try and isolate it and be extremely careful with pots, potting mix, tools and hands.