Could be any number of things......have you been in a drought and maybe haven’t watered enough? What zone are you in? Big city and state is good as my zone 5b can be very different from zone 5 in other places.

Now, at this time of the season, hostas are storing energy for dormancy and so energy previously going to produce leaves and flowers, is now being stored to hopefully make a better plant next summer. I have a number of hostas looking pretty ugly right now. Ken says by August hostas start getting “the uglies.” You May be experiencing this natural process. Leaves collapse, turn brown, burn.....

A better and bigger picture of the hosta showing the base of the leaves may be helpful to determine whether there is any other issue. Is this your only hosta showing collapse???

debra

lack of water ... and it almost went summer dormant from such ...

water it deeply.. a couple time this fall.. and it should recover ...

might even recover this season..

youre new jork.. right ... even if it goes dormant .. just water it.. and dont worry about it ...

ken

I've been getting the same thing on some of my more sun-sensitive hostas, even though they are watered very well every couple of days, when I see the soil is dry in their pots. I'm assuming it's a combination of sunburn and the time of year. Am I right?

The pictured hosta is the worst representative of a long row of them. They do get hit with sun, and we did have a brief drought at some point when I didnt bother watering. I trimmed off the worst leaves afterwards, but I guess the lesson is that hostas need consistent moisture, since they may not come back for the rest of the season. I take it you see no slug damage? I haven't had that problem yet but wondered if this might be the start.

If you had a drought and didn't water, you may be seeing the effects of that which doesn't show up right away. Your slug damage seems minimal. I find slugs don't like places that get a lot of sun and where the soil can dry. Overcrowded gardens in shade are usually very attractive to slugs.

When you trim off the leaves, I hope you are using clean tools? I prefer to pull off dead leaves.