good question..it sounds like she didn't take your question seriously..wonder how much she knows about HVX..I bet not much..

Glad you see it this way also. My husband isn’t into hostas at all but even he knows now how much value we have in our garden and he said he doesn’t want to buy in this nursery. He was put off by they way hostas where split in quarters and put into pots.

of course ... they can be reported to your county Ag or extension office ... selling virused stock is not really on their approved list ...

ken

That is a garage sale nursery if they are selling dug up hostas out of someone's yard at retail prices.

I don't have a problem "quartering" a large hosta and sticking it into a pot. It's the next best thing to tossing them in the driveway. BUT a licensed nursery should be able to certify their stock. Selling hosta divisions from a customer's yard belongs on Craigslist or a yard sale, not at their retail establishment.

One more reason to only purchase hostas from reputable sellers who specialize in hostas and who know all about HVX.

Claudia- It is a good thing that you have such sharp eyes. ;-)

-Babka

I've been accused of sounding like a "snob" on Facebook hosta pages because I give people a lot of "be careful" type comments about buying hostas at places like Wal Mart, etc. More accurately, when I first started buying hostas, I purchased a whole bunch of dirty, virused plants from a couple Wal Marts and another local place, and it left a VERY bad taste in my mouth. Buy wherever you like, but virused hostas at big box-type stores (and lots of nurseries) is a normal thing, and should be expected. Don't be surprised if you end up with dirty plants. So again, I'll say be careful. : )

I still take that gamble, but I've wondered the same thing about local nurseries. They have such big selections of plants that I'm not sure if they are up-to-date on what might affect all the different kinds of plants they have.

I wonder if the woman at your nursery got defensive so just said to you they're fine. I hope later she looked it up and would care about reselling anything diseased. That would affect her business.

At a nice nursery here I saw a worker going from perennial plant to plant cutting off any ugly leaves. I would imagine they probably do the same thing in their hosta greenhouse.

So far I haven't seen any hostas that look virused in any of the nurseries nor at any of the Lowes in my area, but as we know, it can take years to show up.

"guarantee a disease free plant?" Or you get your money back!

My money back on one won't cover the loss of a whole bunch of treasured hostas as well as not being able to plant hostas in the same place for many years. All it takes is one hosta, then as you work thru your garden with it (HVX) clinging to your clippers.

I am good at getting my OWN bugs and diseases here. I want a CLEAN plant to start with and then let me mess it up.

-Babka

I would not diagnose HXV because some of
the leaves look a bit “weird.”

How weird?
Weird in what way? Weird from
being freshly dug or weird from HXV?

I would also ask posters where the hell
they think plants come from?
Laboratories? Factories?

How does the poster know that the nursery
does not administer a virus test to ascertain whether the hostas are virused?

I would think that asking more questions of
the nursery is in order here. There is nothing inherently wrong with selling
plants dug from a garden.

And one final comment. You walked through the nursery with a salesperson. Is the salesperson also a grower? Because the nursery grower should be able to anwer questions a salesperson might not.

I guess it's a good/ bad thing. On one hand, I'm happy to see the nursery saving plants instead of throwing them out. If they put in the original garden or the hostas are more than 5 years old and don't show signs of HVX, they should be fine. It's common to have a few weird leaves on a divided hosta - dessication, dying or burned leaves, etc. And it probably saved the homeowner some money.

On the other hand, there's a chance one is infected, and if they just dug them all up with the same shovel, the infection could spread.

The best advice I've had was "treat every hosta as if it was infected until you're sure it isn't." I confess I don't do that, will plant things from places I'm pretty sure of. If I'm suspicious, it goes in a spin out bag for a few years.

Of all the hostas I've had, the only one with HVX was a Golden Edger I put in over 15 years ago. At the time, no one knew about not planting in the same spot. I put a new hosta there a few weeks later, and it's never shown signs of virus. And twice I've had a hosta that looked virused come back the next year perfectly normal. So I'm careful, but not paranoid.

The one time I bought a virused hosta, it came from one of the most expensive nurseries in town. It was a huge, gorgeous Royal Standard (I think I paid $25.00 for it), which showed up with the virus the next spring. They bought it from a local grower, Green Lakes Nursery.

The next year, at another local nursery close to my house, I saw another Royal Standard that was virused. It also grown at Green Lakes. I took them a virus strip and they tested it. They quit buying from Green Lakes.

Low and Behold, I went back a year later and they had another virused Royal Standard from Green Lakes.

I complained to the Agriculture department. This is Texas, so they had no clue about hosta or viruses. I don't know what ever happened, either.

But, I quit buying hosta locally.

bkay

"virused hosta, it came from one of the most expensive nurseries in town."

Exactly! Most of my hostas came from big box stores - never had HVX.

Kind of reminds me of global warming - NO ONE denies it exists but the hysteria never meets reality and is clearly used to further another agenda. In this case many people have an intense hatred of Walmart and other big box stores due to their belief that they ruin small retailers. So they buy off of Amazon ruining small and large retailers!

Well, gardencool. As I understand it, Green Lakes sells to both Lowe's and Home Depot in this area.

No big box and few independent nurseries grow their own stock. They buy from local sources as long distance shipping is not practical, at least in the growing season. At least here, those growers grow multiple kinds of plants. They may grow hosta, hydrangea, passionflowers, day lillies and annuals. They are not experts at any one kind of plant.

Also, the big box stores don't have a clue about plant diseases. They have buyers who want cheap and on time. They buy from whomever meets that criteria. Some growers are negligent and some are not.

So how do you tell the difference? You can't. You roll the dice whether buying from a big box store or a local nursery.

bkay

Do you need a ladder to get off that high horse you are on, nina? I'm quite sure no one said it was "inherently wrong" to sell hostas dug from someone's yard and sold in a bucket at a nursery. Where do nursery hostas come from? That's the point only you missed, nina. NOT from a customer's yard!

"You roll the dice whether buying from a big box store or a local nursery." I'll bet there are people on this board who have gotten HVX infected hostas via mail order. Isn't that how it initially spread - via bare root hostas from Europe!

I quit going to most of the local "independent" nurseries once I discovered that they source their plants from the same places as Home Depot, Lowes, and Walmart. The only difference is they charge about twice as much.

I have found a local source of shade plants that grows all of their own hosta and heuchera stock. For any hostas they don't carry, I order from one of the trusted mail order companies. I bought a lot of my initial hostas as cheap plants at the big box stores and never had a problem but they rarely have anything I want to buy anymore and it isn't worth the risk, anyway.

There is another family run nursery that is only open in June that has acres and acres of daylillies that they grow themselves. Their prices for plants that completely fill 2 gallon pots and have 4-5 fans are actually cheaper than big box store charges for smaller, more common varieties.

Thank you gardencool. I felt the same way about the comment let by Nina.

I am absolutely no expert in diagnosing the virus and I purposely didn’t say “it was the virus” however I have been spending quite some time reading and looking pictures up to say it was a fair chance it was. It had collapsed and discolored tissue inside the leave.

as of for the „sales person” she is the one who is working there all year round. Yes I do go to the nurseries in winter as well. She is the lady in charge during summer for hostas.

Now many may not have a problem with reported plants sold for top dollar at a high end nursery. We do! Or at least I expect the plant potted with sufficient soil. If i do go to an expensive restaurant to treat myself to something special I want the Ambiente, the service AND perfect prepared food. I pay for that! Otherwise I would go to Friday’s.

also I whole heatedly agree with someone else who said 1 sick plant could ruin all hostas you collected for years! I am only in my 1 year (2018) becoming a Hosta collector. I might have the virus already and I just don’t know but I can be careful from now on sincw I KNOW it exists.

either way, we will do business there anymore. I got the feeling they re do someone’s yard, have that person pay for all the new landscaping plants and the “old” stuff gets reported and sold. I call that a rip off

I hope I would spring to the defense of any small business person who is accused of shoddy business practices without proof. If hosta lovers do not form alliances with and support their local growers, where do they think the hostas of the future will come from?

Full disclosure – I am a nursery woman and I am proud of my occupation. I do not make weapons of mass destruction, I do not cheat seniors out of their pensions, I grow plants. I make the world more beautiful. It is a noble occupation. And I would take it amiss if someone came to my nursery and accused me of harbouring a virus because I dig plants from the ground. Or because they saw the state of certain plants before they were potted up and grown on and ready for sale.

Claudia, you admit you do not know for sure what a virused hosta looks like. Again,
why not question the growers from the nursery. If their answers do not satisfy, do not support them. Tell everyone else.

But unless you know the hosta is virused, give the nursery a break. They need
every customer they can get. It’s June. No doubt they are working around
the clock from dawn to dusk and have been doing so since January-February, Ask.

Because you see a bunch of hosta waiting to be planted does not mean the nursery’s practices are in any way suspect. It is a matter of minutes to test hostas for the virus.

If the nursery owners have been landscaping their customer’s yard for a number of years, they probably planted the hostas and maintained.the hosta. So they may well know that the hostas are safe.

Hi Nina, we disagree and that’s ok :-)

i really do appreciate your response and your point of view. I can see how hard it must be for small businesses to survive these days. I am always trying to buy locally and support small stores. I like that when you shop there often that they get to know you and they can help you differently.

Claudia, this is your first season of getting hostas??? Wow, you have a LOT of hostas! : )

Hello Don, to be honest I bought last fall fragrant bouquet, dream weaver & minute man.

Our house was a fixer upper everything was neglected, but we got it for a decent price. Still to this day we have massive fallen trees in the backyard and the house doesn’t have a patio. It’s 50 years old. The home and yard had been trashed ... today I dug a hole for an astilbes and a doll head came out of the ground (creepy :-)

In 2016 my neighbor (she is in a wheelchair wanted less work) got rid of half of her landscaping, they tossed everything in the ditch in mid August. By the time I called to ask if I could have them they sat for about a week in the heat. The rumor is that her house belonged first to a hobby gardener. Sum substance, sagae, Spartacus and some others I don’t know the names came from her.

In Spring 2017 two of my neighbors got offers from builders to sell their house so they can build big houses on it. We live in an area where the lots are large with small old homes on them. The land is more worth than the house. Everyone in the neighborhood got permission from the builder to take the plants before they come with the big machines and destroy everything.

One of the best purchases in 2016 was when I found at Lowe’s totally brown (no lead) limelight hydrangeas for $5. I bought 20. I never found a deal quite like that anymore :-)

Claudia..I love your stories!..I have one..we bought our house from a family with 3 young boys..I've found lots of candy wrappers, straws, broken toys etc but once I found a pair of Groucho Marx glasses with the nose up facing me..was kind of freaky!

Nina, I found nothing about your comments that isn't right on the mark. You make very good points but more importantly, you remind us to ask questions of the vendors we support. Not only is it a wonderful way to cultivate relationships but it is wise of us to know the facts rather than to speculate, or jump to the wrong conclusions.

I hope you are having a great season so far. God knows how busy you must be. I got caught up with Laurie/perenn.all the other evening and her days [like yours! no doubt] are extremely long (6ish until dark!) as owner of Stoneridge Gardens in the Ottawa area. (My parents grew vegetables for a living shortly after we arrived in Canada many, many years ago --- I am fully appreciative and understand the intensive manual labour associated with that.)

I wish you continued success and who knows? ... I might drop in someday and check out your stock too! ;-)