just playing devils advocate .....

hmmmm. .... dormancy is a function of temps... length of day ... and .. well i just blanked ... lol ...

i guess i dont understand a finite length of season as a variable ...

isnt winter dormancy something like 40 days or so.. at some magic temp ... that might suggest a possible 320 day non dormant season ...

in august ... i would think more along the lines of water stress ... but i am sure you know how to water .... so who knows ...

ken

not yet..I have 2 bleeding hearts that are going down but my hostas are still green..

Don, I was surprised by your question and your photo of BH (also have one and it is still very blue), so I went out right after the rain to look at some of my hostas. I have noticed that Brother Stefan is displaying some signs around the margins that look like early dormancy. It certainly is not deprived of water so I am a bit surprised. Don't even have to click on it...you can see the fading margins - but more apparent in zoom mode.

Great Expectations looks wonderful still...then I went for closer look and a couple of margins look like this too. Again, no shortage of water. I wish I could have taken a photo but it started to rain again.

Ken's comments made me think that perhaps here it's the heat.

"i guess i dont understand a finite length of season as a variable …" Yeah, I was just speculating, Ken. You're probably right. Here as well, I think it is heat stress, Jo. Not a lack of water, as I learned that lesson several seasons ago. My hostas are getting copious amounts of water this season, all season, since the heat has been blasting since late May. I guess we just have to make sure we continue to water well up until dormancy. That's a beautiful Brother Stefan!

I have quite a few hostas that are looking a little tired and brown around the edges. I am guessing it's because this summer has been HOT HOT HOT with virtually no rain. They do get watered with sprinklers but weeks on end of temps in the upper 90's is having an effect on the plants as well as me! I am so done with this summer and looking forward to some nice fall weather!

I also have some looking very tired and yellow/brown. I suppose it could be heat stress. It has been beastly hot. I was a bit worried (as I tend to be). Especially since some of them are in a spot in my garden where they just lost a good portion of their shade. My peach tree had a terrible year this year and had to be pruned more than I would have liked. So much of the shade it provided for the hostas is gone.

Same here, garden looks tired. We finally had couple of rains. No lack of watering though... Should I worry that something is bothering roots with those hostas that took this summer hardest?

My High Society has very brown leaf tips, but no one else has. Some of the heucheras were devastated by the weedkiller blown by the wind onto my garden when the morons masquerading as "landscape workers" sprayed weedkiller on the lawn right next to my garden on a windy day. Other hostas & heuchies, roses, wax begonias, geraniums, petunias, etc. still doing great. This was really the year for wax begonias; it's like I fertilized them with TNT.