love to see a pic ... like to confirm its secondary to sun burn ...

one would expect.. that a fungicide ... wouldnt hurt a bug ... which isnt a fungus.. eh???

but then.... why risk it.. double eh???

they should be reflushing soon ... so i would probably.. without a pic.. be willing to remove a few of the worst leaves ... especially.. if the remaining are still green ... and still working ...

if its simply driving you crazy ... you could cut a lot off ... not much different than if a hail storm rolled thru ... but they might end up smaller next year ...

real hard speculating.. without a pic ...

ken

I'm sorry this happened..I hope someone with experience can help..I would be cutting and disposing of the worst leaves..it just seems practical..

Thing with fungus it requires moist environment to thrive usually. Yes. Pic would be nice.

Half an hour post lost to Houzz insanity. I’ll try again after dinner.

It started with Raucous Ruffles.

Next Son of Raucous Ruffles, a much more vigorous seedling than his parent and only about 12 inches away, started to show some leaf deterioration.

Deep Blue Sea is the next Hosta over in the bed and has suffered enough vole attacks that it is fairly immature even though it’s been here several years. it started to show this sort of ugliness.

The next Hosta up the hill from DBS is Summer Squall, a vigorous, North Carolina Bob Solberg bred Hosta that’s usually unflappable. The leaves closest to DBS are starting to look bad. That is also the side that’s in the most sun.

Here’s a pic of Lemon Snap that I moved from a lot of shade to an extremely sunny bed earlier this year. The leaves it grew since then are greener and standing up straight, I’m assuming to minimize sun strike. You can see one of the older leaves at nine o’clock dying and looking fungused. I think I ripped off the worst ones

I figured all the damage I was seeing was sun damage, but now I’m not sure and want to know what to do to keep it from spreading.

Kathy..so sorry to see what's happened to your hosta..Lemon Snap is adorable!..bkay's file has better information than what I found..I hope you can find the solution..

all kinds of things attack already damaged tissue ... its natures way ...

leaves with ANY green.. are still doing their job ... converting sun into energy ... and storing excess in the roots ..... so i would NOT go removing all the damaged leaves ...

the damage looks little different than frost or freeze or hail damage ... so my suggestion would be the same... remove a couple of the worst leaves ... perhaps just to say you did something ... but leaving most .. see above ...

when they reflush ... most of the damage will be hidden ...

most of the mass producers.. field grow ... in full sun ... the plants .. especially the older landscape workhorses .... and i would bet they look no different.. by the time the heat of summer hits ... though that is speculation on my part .... but they dont care.. because they are growing root masses for sale next season ... the increased sun makes a big difference in that regard ...

i wouldnt waste time or money on sprays .... but if i was strolling around with my clippers... i might snip off a few here or there .. or just rip them off if you want to avoid the infected clipper issue ...

ken

Thanks, bk and everyone. It’s probably anthracnose, because i have lots of dogwoods and anthracnose is decimating native dogwoods. The young ones get it fast and don’t make it. I’ve cut down several smaller dogwoods that were heavily infected, but there are still some that I was hoping would recover from damage done by the tree fall incident last fall. I guess they will go, too.

The same pathogen that attacks the dogwoods may not attack hostas at all - unless you have specific information about it being known to affect such completely unrelated plants.

agree..... its a pretty big jump to anthracnose

i dont ever recall reading on it attacking hosta ... but i dont claim to be the be all and end all on diseases .... especially if its a down south thing .... i was most focused on MI stuff ... rather than things that did not really apply to me ....

the library is my usual reference point ... look what i found

but again ... it sounds like this is a primary problem.. where you suggest that yours is a problem secondary to sunburn.. though i dont know if that matters ...

ken

http://www.hostalibrary.org/Disease/PestFB.htm

which came from this page: http://www.hostalibrary.org/Disease/Pest2.htm

which came from the pest and disease link on this page.. bigger than life...lol: http://www.hostalibrary.org/

Fungus does not damage healthy plants , it is secondary problem as I see it so fixing initial problem would be my choice. Is it watering that is insufficient for the area?

I am a biological gardener so I care about biology of the soil and living things. I have significant vegetable gardens and grow multiple veggies, of a lot of canning etc. So I do invest in sprays that help my plants to be healthy. Besides watering the heck out of them i would do foliar sprays with seaweed and fish emulsion, I also add EM aka SCD probiotics. Kelp has good antifungal properties. Check out Smiling gardener website for more info if you are interested.

I agree that fungus does not affect healthy hostas. There’s been so much rain that I don’t think it’s lack of water, but there’s a serious lack of shade.

The Iowa State University document that bkay linked has a section on anthracnose in hostas that appears to have been written by Bob Solberg who hybridizes hostas about an hour from here. He’s definitely familiar with our southern summers and the problems they bring.

Then there’s the “Duh” factor. Right over this bed is a small (2” diameter/ 12’ tall dogwood) that was doing ok earlier this season, but looks like it’s succumbing to anthracnose. I’ve noticed that the infected dogwoods will shed enough fungal spores to affect hostas underneath. In the past I’ve sacrificed the dogwood. I guess this one’s going to go, too. i have some mature dogwoods that fight the anthracnose off. They are two stories tall and beautiful. But the young ones aren’t making it. Too bad, it’s the state tree. I hear they are working on breeding resistant ones.

I am no expert by any mean’s, but my gut reaction was, too much sun. I am unfamiliar with the climate you grow in. I am really sorry this is happening. I have had issues with cutworms and slugs this year, but no real unsolvable problems. It is very frustrating I’m sure. Good luck!