Knock on wood, I've never detected any on my plants.

Don B.

none here

I'm not sure if I do or not as I grow in pots. However, I think I have them in my planter box or else I received some hosta that were already infected. Since they came from a reputable hosta grower, I assume it's the planter box. If I ever decide to try hosta there again, I'll remove all the soil and pour boiling water on everything. As it is, I don't think they bother anything except hosta. I've had impatiens, ivy (the inside kind) and begonia in it and it hasn't bothered them.

bk

The plant you buy in spring will not show it until July or August. By then by handling this one plant and other clean ones you will spread it. I have areas where there are no nematodes, but some plants have a lot, one I threw out, others I sprayed and no nematodes there any longer. So it is a moving picture. I had no nematodes until 2009 when I started adding a lot of newer cultivars. Before 2009 I also had no HVX, over the last 3 years I find 2 HVX plants per year. Bernd

too many grain fields around for them to play in, for them to take a visit to hosta land... i keep hoping

dave

and for the unknowing..

there are millions of nems in every tablespoon of soil ...

most are inert.. some are beneficial ...

and just a few are bad ...

so when you say you dont have them ... you mean you dont have the bad ones for hosta ...

gotta make sure the newbs dont get confused...

ken

If you don't have foliar nems, then you haven't been growing Hosta for very long, or you don't know what to look for. If you plant something that is not directly from tissue culture, then the chances of getting nems with that plant is very high.

I've instituted a one year quarantine area for any plant not from TC. They stay in pots until I'm sure there are no nems. Then in the fall they go into the ground. I also shop more in August and September, only buying from sources I'm confident in during the Spring.

I threw out 20 plants last year and three this year. I have a few in pots that I know have nems and they are not near any others, spaced apart. I'm going to see if I can rid them of the microscopic nasties.

I won a good sized pot of H. Dragon Lady in a lottery earlier this year. I left it in it's pot and in September it showed evidence of nems in the leaves. I wouldn't be surprised if there isn't a clean piece of Dragon Lady in existence. Since this is a rare Hosta and not in TC, I'm going to try to eliminate the nems in it. Wish me luck.

Steve

This post was edited by steve_mass on Mon, Oct 7, 13 at 9:11

Tough little bugger to get rid of once you introduce one in your garden, unfortunately I don't think there's any way of getting rid of them totally available in the market now.
The good thing being in z5... you don't see their ugly leaves until late in the season which is almost time for them to go dormant.
Thats great If you don't have them in your garden, be very careful with any new plants you are bringing to your garden.. Lots of companion plant carry the same bad nems that will spread to the hosta...good luck everybody:)

I know we have nematodes in our area. The most often talked about are root knot nematodes. I think they affect tomatoes.

They show up here about June. That was when I saw my first foliar nematodes. I had removed some poorly performing hosta from a planter box. The nematodes showed up the next year. I chunked pot and all.

I think growing in pots and on pot feet insulate me a lot, at least I hope.

bk

Overhead watering will splash the little suckers from one plant to the next. Which is one reason most folks do not spray but use soaker hoses etc.

I had two with foliar nems last season early, one a plantaginea and the other a Lakeside Kaleidoscope. I bare rooted and bleached them for 30 minutes in a 20% bleach solution. This year they were very small, but show no signs of any nems. I had one other come down with the nems, and I tossed it. It was in a terra cotta clay pot so I suppose the nems may have nestled in there.....no other hosta from that nursery came down with anything at all. Anyway, I tossed the whole shebang...no reason to gamble on another bout with nems in another species of ornamental plant.

I think that is pretty good, considering that nems here can show up as early as late May or June, just when things are beginning to look gorgeous.

Our bad karma comes from southern blight. I lost 3 hosta to that this year, including one I treasured mightily. The fourth one I must have caught quick enough that it survived, although it was hugely reduced in size. We had so much rain, so much heat, so much humidity, I'm amazed that more did not succumb to that scary affliction. Meanwhile, a cold front scooted the remnants of Tropical Storm Karen away from us, and it is now a very pleasant cool 66 degrees. I'm waiting for seed pods to dry on the plants, so I can pick them. Open pollinated, of course.

It's almost Sleepy Time Down South. For hosta, that is. This whole growing year has been shorter than 2012.

Here is a link that might be useful: Louis Prima--Sleepy Time Down South

Just finished my squishy (3 days of rain) walk-about the garden....me naked eye could not see visible signs of nematodes....relief or what?! But after reading the qualifiers, I guess I can't say I have a nematode-free garden. Instead I can quote Ken..."so when you say you dont have them ... you mean you dont have the bad ones for hosta ..."

Good 'nuff for me!

Mocc: so glad to hear from you! and sorry to hear about the loss of your treasured hosta...hope you are staying sane re remodelling..SO enjoyed listening to Sleepy Time..thank you for that....imagined myself swinging in the arms of DWTS Max, LOL.....as if...

Good thread melati....you were the catalyst for nematode education! :-). Thank you.

Jo

More and more hosta going dormant....pushing soil over exposed roots in some pots and finding lots of dormant buds..spring promises to be VERY exciting!

Steve, good luck with H. 'Dragon Lady'.

Don B.

Same as Steve writes, here in zone 5 nematodes have an impact in August, and I can handle that with pulling leaves off. As one man here with a very large hosta garden and many years of experience said, nematodes show up here when the hosta garden is starting to go down anyway, like via viruses and fungi. When you don't like it, then spray some Bayer insecticide. So I spray a little insecticide and try to get perfect.

In respect to not watering from overhead, stringing, replacing and upkeeping soaker hoses is a much larger effort than placing sprinklers for me. I have soaker hoses in a quarter of my property and gave up on them because after a few years they constantly get holes. But about proper irrigation we had a lot of threads here. Bernd

While removing blue sport from my second 'June'.....how did I miss this tell-tale sign? Must have had my eyes closed I guess....call me Mr. Magoo!

I removed three leaves that had the same markings......ugh, I do have those dreaded nematodes in my garden after all. :-(. I hope it's limited to this.

I just realized that these markings were developing earlier in the season after checking my pictures. I did not recognize the signs then. Tomorrow morning, every hosta is getting a shower with the ammonia solution.

I posted this picture previously because June looked so good, and still does today. Notice the three leaves with nematode markings?

Here's the ' hindsight ' from July 18th....evidence I missed because I didn't know how to recognize the presence of nematodes. positions 10:00 and 1:00.

Thank you, Melati, for posting about nematodes, Steve for the ensuing educational quiz, and Ken for filling in the rest of the blanks that made it so easy to absorb and a great tutorial as well.

The purpose of these latest pics and postings was to demonstrate (to other still-learning newbies like me out there) how easily one can overlook trouble in their garden...when one is not "in the know".

Jo

Jo... I don't think those are Nems... Probably sun damage or some other fungus.

Jo, they fill the whole width between the veins, not necessarily the length, though. (it's not just a brown mark) I had a photo of them on one of mine. If I can find the photo, I'll post it.

bk

Leaf shot ...fingers crossed ..

If I've over-reacted and it's not nems, I'm buying! Lol

Not nems. Nematodes damage will fill out the space in between the veins. Notice how with the brown areas in your picture, there is a little green between the damage and the vein. That looks like sun damage to me.

Steve

Hey Melati, you didn't end up having a stupid question after all!

Just like you Jo, I have been poking around my plants. I too think I may have stumbled on nematodes on my Rainforest Sunrise. (I was getting to like that hosta more and more.) Now I'll have to research my options to address it. Luckily it's in a pot. Lucky for you Jo, that yours doesn't appear to be nemotodes!

Here's my photos. What do you think---nematodes?

And here is another shot on a different leaf of the same plant (Rainforest Sunrise).

NHL,

First picture clearly shows nems.

Steve

Thank you Steve for confirming the diagnosis. I would not have been aware of nematodes nor would I have been able to identify them without your quiz and Melati's thread. I don't think I have repotted this one since purchasing it, and I have been trying to keep my potted plants from touching each other. So there's a good chance the nematodes have not spread to any of my other hostas.

Thank you Melati, BK and Steve for your help with this. I feel much relief.

Steve, I see what you mean (I went back to look at your examples again) and I see the difference between the veins...and the difference in NHL's example as well...the red colour of the "stripes" on the leaves of my plant alarmed me. Sun damage I can deal with....sort of like LiLo's freckles, lol.

NHL...so sorry about your RAinforest Sunrise...hopefully your planned treatment will check those nasty nematodes! And preserve your hosta.

Jo