Not hostas and clematis, but other plants -- namely milkweed, which should be pretty much bulletproof. One really large clump I have finally sent out one measly shoot, its about thumb height right now, the other just refuses to send up the shoot or two that I can see has been trying to poke through for the past couple weeks. The Japanese iris only grew to half its normal height but at least is full - it just looks weird. And seemingly constant problems with caryopteris -- I swear I'm cursed when it comes to this plant, even the NEW plants I bought a couple weeks ago, which were breaking bud when I bought them, have stopped growing and a couple of them look deader than a doornail - WTH I just bought them!?!?

Does that area get salted during the winter? It must be something that was spread on that area for all the plants to die.

dig them up.. and see what the roots tell you ...

one possibility .. which i doubt with you .. would be late drought on a new transplant ... that went into winter without enough water in it... dry rot .. which the roots would show...

we had a rather mild winter.. with not much snow cover.. i swear such is worse than the alternative ... with repeated thawing and freezing of bare soil ... and the attendant drying of soil with wind and sunny days ....

then.. on top of it.. we had some spectacular freezes ... which destroyed much of the spring shrub flower show ... like lilac ...

ken

I hear ya 'woody'. Unexpectedly I am close to losing one of my two long returning, very established spigelia marilandica. And my usually very vigorous Tie Dye clematis seems a bit listless. Similarly for a nice stand of an almost red phlox. May had unexpected weather ie cold but the winter was quite moderate. I wonder if all that rain in January did in some plants?

mxk3 - misery like company... :-) I'll have to ask neighbours who have lots of milkweed how theirs did... Re caryopteris - if there's a secret to growing that plant, I don't have it! I always killed any I tried too... A neighbour used to have lots and gave me seedling repeatedly - they promptly died!

frankielynnsie - no salt anywhere near these plants and the odd thing is that the Halcyon hostas died but the older variegated one is fine and has several small seedlings; the ferns are fine; the bleeding hearts near the gate are fine and there are seedlings from them too. Some of the clematises there died but there are a couple of survivors - but weaker -much weaker - than normal. There doesn't seem to be consistency or an obvious reason.

ken - I'd dig the hostas up to check the roots - IF I could see the plants! They have literally vanished! DH used the mulching leaf blower to suck up and shred the oak leaves that collect along the fence - that eliminated any dead foliage that would have marked the location of the hostas. The area is fairly sheltered with the house blocking wind from the north. Some pictures:

Sept. 4 2019 - you can see the blue foliage of the hostas and, if you look closely, the variegated hosta hiding behind a fern! Only the straight post remains as the leaning ones (all the posts were part of a swag that has now been removed) were taken down this spring.

Looking down from the house this afternoon - you can see that the old variegated hosta is fine but there is no sign of the others!

Rouge - we didn't get the rain you guys got up there - all the weather systems hit the Niagara Escarpment and got diverted north! We are in the 'rain shadow' of the Escarpment so are drier than I'd like it to be! But it sounds like your conditions were odd for your garden too!

Any chance you have neighbors using weedkiller and spraying it all over.?

Shrinking plants are so frustrating. Last year Niagara Falls and Bridal Falls went from big to tiny. Angel Falls from getting bigger to minuscule. Everything else in the bed was fine. Niagara Falls was full of tree roots, but not the other two. Sometimes you just have to swear and keep trying.

MadPlanter1 - no chemical sprays allowed here in Ontario so that isn’t likely to be an explanation and, even if it was, why would it only affect the hostas which disappeared and not the older one or its seedlings...? I will indeed swear and maybe try some green hostas there - they would probably look better with the ferns anyway :-) Shopping in garden centres is still a pretty iffy thing but, hopefully I’ll be able to find some replacement clematises somewhere.

Crazy winter, much warmer and not much snow. My Japanese iris are short too. The daylilies are great no issue there. I had the same issue of established hostas shrinking Oh Cindy and Gemstone are very very small. I can't figure out what happened. I can only hope that the next winter will provide snow cover and we won't have warm temperatures that plunged into super cold days and then back again to warm.

mxk3 - when we were out walking the dog we ran into one of the neighbours that grow milkweed, so I asked her if she lost any this winter/spring. She said ‘no’.....

Yea, it is weird --

Sure is weird weather everywhere this year it seems. We have been getting rain almost daily just as if we were on the coast and I live in the middle of British Columbia so the difference across the miles are so different. I would certainly share some of this rain so I can get out and mow my lawn without swishing. I did lose half or more of my wisteria this past winter and was going to dig it up but noticed it is not a total death , Peonies are still not more then small globes and looks like less flowers then past year and we had loads of snow this past winter.. You are fortunate to have so many places you can purchase online in the east. In fact I have got well over half of mine in Ontario and Fundy Beauties in Nova Scotia and shipped right across the country in the mail. Hope your luck changes and improves considerably. We all need sun and warmth before summer arrives next week

Every spring I discover at least a few losses. I always plant in at least three’s, and lose one in the set. Why just one perishes..microclimate? .I’ll never know? It’s disappointing and ruins the plan.

I end up dividing what’s left, and then have wait for them to mature again... It’s an endless cycle.

Honestly though with the crazy winters we’ve been having,..I have anticipated greater loses only to be pleasantly surprised with very few.

I’ve now come to accept there will always be loses....it’s a part of gardening.

I have this one spot that I have tried four different shrubs in. (2 replacing the original 2) They just won’t survive there....yet everything surrounding them thrives. Another spot where I have tried several clematis to buddy with another...they never return :(

Mysterious. Things that make you go hmmmm....

Thanks for everyone's comments - it sounds like this is a common phenomenon! I've certainly lost plants before but I can usually figure out the reason. This loss of the blue hostas still baffles me but I guess there is nothing to do but replace them with something else and hope for the best....! I think I'll use divisions of hostas already in the garden rather than purchased plants (which is what the ones that disappeared were!)

Do you have voles?

NHBabs - we’ve never had problems with voles before. Apparently a neighbour across the street and up a few houses said he had some vole damage this past winter. If it was voles, how would I tell? And why would they only attack the three hostas planted in this area last year? Two of the hostas were side by side and the third was a bit further away with a fern in between.

Over the years I have had hostas come back smaller than they were the previous year. Rarely they've disappeared. In a massed planting where all the hostas were the same size and maturity, shrinkage messes up the design. Once I had a tree in the woods taken out in the winter. The tree guys dragged its trunk with chains across the frozen big hosta bed. Some of the hostas in that area came up smaller that spring, and have never caught up with their companions in that massed planting area. It's visible to me and I care, but what's a gardener to do?

I usually assign shrinkage, when it shows up first thing in spring, to voles eating roots in winter, but I'm not sure. It could be grubs eating the roots? Some areas in my garden have a lot of grubs in the ground, which I notice when I dig a new hole. Not sure how much damage they can do to hosta roots. I've got tons of chipmunks, and have wondered if they eat the roots in the winter. Not sure about that.

Then there's frost damage. I can usually diagnose that, since it shows up right after a frost, and looks like frost damage.

I've had the normal rabbit and deer damage during the green season. When that happens it's usually obvious who has been doing the eating. Several times I've had crown rot (scary!!!) attack groups of hostas that are near to each other. And I've stepped on hostas in the early spring when they are hard to see, causing real damage, and once death. Same thing for workmen around the house. They do damage, stepping on the plants.

That's about it for shrinking and disappearing hostas in my garden. Yes, it's annoying, but so far, since I have a full garden, it has not been devastating.

Postscript: I gave up on clematis years ago.

This year, every thing is weird. Emergence has been very delayed on some things...and we had a rather average winter, though lots of spring coldness (atypically) and very very wet with almost no sun through spring. I have pepper seedlings (bell peppers) that were sown in April and have three leaves on them (only).
Then, there's the flipside, there's a few things that just loved it and came early and large. I can't figure out why my hibiscus liked it...they typically prefer warm I thought.

It is finally summer, which I don't like (hot...must stay in A/C cave, etc), but that has spurred some (but not all) things to grow.
Who can figure it out? I mean I've been gardening nearly fifty years, and I haven't a clue this year.

hey .. or should it be.. eh ... look what i found in the hosta library ... go figure.. ken

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

Interesting article Ken.... Today I noticed another hosta missing from an area well away from the south alley where the other three were lost. The south alley ones were Halcyon I think and the one I noticed was gone today was El Nino. The Halcyons were just planted last year but the El Nino is/was about 5 years old so was fairly well established. If these were random weather-related deaths, I think hostas have just lost their ‘bulletproof‘ tough plant status for me!

Woodyoak, with regards to voles, I find tunnels. Apparently from what I have read and see, one of my local species will tunnel just below the soil surface, so I find tunnels that collapse in my sandy soil when pushed on. I often see holes. And the other species tunnels just at ground level through vegetation, so in late winter spring their tunnels are very visible as the snow melts. In summer I sometime see tunnels or even the voles themselves in taller plants. I know a vole is the culprit if a missing or limp plant is surrounded by loose soil and tunnels around it or there is upper structure but no roots.

The voles‘ removal of plants is fairly random because their tunnel has to meet up with the plant.

I was just doing some checking on Halcyon and El Nino, with ken’s linked article in mind.... Interesting, I found that El Niño is either a seedling or a sport of Halcyon! I wonder if they are both perhaps more vulnerable to winterkill than other hostas...? Mind you, I have another Halcyon that came through the winter just fine... (It is the oldest one and near the house so perhaps that protected it more...?)

The pest disease link Ken posted, shows pretty much what happened to my Great Expectations. I have also notice some shrink on a few hostas as well......Maui Buttercups, Fire Island one of my Junes. I will have to watch them.

debra

NHBabs - thanks for the details re voles. I don’t think they were responsible for the loss of the hostas in the south alley - no loose soil or tunnels. I did find a tunnel entrance a couple of years ago in the heavy clay soil of the front bed. (One of my feet dropped into the hole!). We assume that was due to chipmunks as we know there are chipmunks living under the front porch.

I have had trouble with my most of my Clematis this year, but that's every year for me so not unusual!

About your hostas that disappeared, any chance a two-legged critter got them? I hope not, but it's unusual for hostas to disappear without a trace.

I have an unusual problem this year that has puzzled me. I grow from seed, and my stock (Matthiola), larkspur, and others will not grow. They are in a bed that has very good amended soil, gets sun, and have been watered consistently. They are all still 2" high. Stock has been in the ground over a month. Even my seedlings in pots are slow, but they are growing more than the ones in that bed. We did have very cool weather, and my microclimate at my house is cool. You can literally feel the temperature drop a few degrees driving down our driveway. I have been wondering if it was low soil temp, or if Asian jumping worms actually did eat every bit of organic matter in the soil and the plants have nothing. But, even basic potting soil has practically no nutrients (or so I thought), so shouldn't they show some growth? The poppy seeds in that bed are growing (as are some weeds). The only seeds that are really growing are echinacea (they hardly count since they seem to grow regardless), 4:00s, salvia, Sweet Wm Catchly, and Clarkia (and others that aren't coming to mind right now). I am just confused. The established perennials in that bed look fantastic, but it's possible they are growing from stored up nutrients in their roots.

Can you tell how much i've been trying to figure this out? Makes no sense to me.

Insect larvae, Japanese beetles, etc. can also eat roots.

I think chipmunks started killing/weakening some of my hostas so I dug them up and put them in a big pot - they are starting to look better but it will take a couple of years before they are back to what they once were.

I lost a big stand of hardy ginger (Asarum splendens) that disappeared between 2018 and 2019 - just gone! I wonder if the chipmunks killed them or maybe eaten them without my noticing. This is in the same area that I dug up the hostas due to all the chipmunk holes.

Voles on the other hand create tunnels/half-tunnels if there is plenty of fallen leaf debris so they can eat the roots - I find them they are sneaky because the foliage looks fine for a while until it isn't.

It looks like a few of us have mysteries in the garden this year! Most of the possible culprits suggested leave open the question of why the particular plants were killed but not the ones nearby - the two legged critter option is a very remote possibility but would at least explain why only particular plants were lost.... My big question at this point is what is it safe to plant as replacements for what was lost?!

If the hosta doesn't have a name then it seems to last forever and grow during drought. I have one I split into over 15 sections four years ago, and regardless of the weather those things keep expanding. They look like they get their full 1" of water a week, and several are under a Japanese Maple.