Did you not have a picture with this post? I could have sworn......

Epsom salts is only of benefit to plants if there is a magnesium deficiency in your soils. It can present similar to iron chlorosis, with pale coloring and darker veins. Leaf tips a become bright yellow and the plant drops lower leaves.

Have you had your soil tested?

Sorry to hear. I happen to have 2 and 1 is OS. My soil is deficient in Mag not because it is actually lacking but because my Ca is way too high and ties up other minerals. They both grow fairly well considering.

Anyway, I think your problem somewhere in the roots. Picture will help.

PS. Forgot you probably have only containers?

The photo disappeared. I posted it again.

This is a potted hosta. It was new to me last year. I will knock it out of the pot and see if I recognize anything. I don't know what I'm looking for, though.

We have very alkaline soil and water, and if I understand it correctly, that can tie up iron. However, I may be remembering incorrectly.

I've never had this happen before, at least not this bad.

Our radio plant guru comes on tomorrow afternoon. He's getting on up there in age with health issues, so he's only on for an hour on Saturday and a hour on Sunday. I sometimes forget to listen at 1:00 PM on Saturday and never remember 8:00 AM on Sunday.

bk

Do you mean that you have used the native soil from your yard in the pot?

I generally use commercial potting soil and add perlite to it.

I'm not sure how I could lower the pH in my irrigation water. It's what comes out of the hose, via the city water supply. Texas was once an ocean. We have limestone everywhere (when I was a young girl, we would just look around in the dirt to find a piece of chalk to draw our hopscotch board). We have to do heroic soil preparation to grow Azaleas and other acid loving plants - and they still play out in a few years.

I was neglectful in fertilizing last season.

I will knock that hosta out of the pot this morning and report back.

bk

I'm not sure how I could lower the pH in my irrigation water. It can easily be done by adding enough white vinegar or citric acid (drugstore or where whine-making supplies are sold) to bring the water's pH down to about 5.5. Make sure the water sits out in an open container (pan, bowl, bucket) for 24 hrs to allow dissolved CO2 to gas off. If you don't, you'll get a false reading due to the fact the pH rises as the CO2 gasses off.

I think the best path forward insofar as nutritional supplementation would be to start using Foliage-Pro 9-3-6 while the plant is actively growing.

It is a complete source of nutrition (has all nutrients essential to normal growth) in a ratio that closely mimics the ratio at which the average plant actually uses the nutrients. There is a very high likelihood that's all you'll need to do as there is high probability you're not necessarily looking at only an Fe deficiency, but o/a low fertility, especially N(itrogen). Foliage-Pro is an acid forming fertilizer and will help with the pH issues - especially in containers.

I'll watch for your findings. Let us know if the pots are resting on the soil and the plant's roots are growing in native soil through drain holes.

Al

Al, I understand that you are very knowledgeable. However, I'm not a spring chicken anymore. I am not going to mix up a concoction in a barrel, let it set for 24 hours (then, I'd have to have 2 barrels), dip water into a container, carry the container around the yard, on a daily basis to water my hosta.

It's not that you are wrong, it's just that I know I won't do that. I'd quit growing hosta before I would endeavor to do that.

I knocked the hosta out of it's pot. It was not draining well. It showed some rotted roots. I cleaned it up the best I could without bare-rooting it. I added more perlite to my potting mix and put a layer of bark mulch in the bottom of the pot (never have done that before). I replaced most of the soil in the pot and re-potted it. Whether that is sufficient, I don't know.

Now the question is, was that THE problem or just an ancillary problem?

bkay

Edit: I'll go through all my pots next week to see if any others are having that problem. (in the meanwhile, I will be making meringue pies and deviled eggs for Sunday.)

You misunderstood what I suggested, but from what you said it seems it doesn't matter much. Best luck.

Al

"I generally use commercial potting soil and add perlite to it."

So am I misunderstanding something? You talk about your local soil being unsuitable but you're not actually growing in it?

I grow my hosta in pots.

bk

Good luck, Bkay. I bet that MM will grow better know that you repotted it. I have also had new plants struggle and set back in second year. The mail-order bare-root ones can have a bad first or second year, then stabilize. It is almost as it they don’t have the right amount of crowns/leaves for their roots, or the wrong roots for their crowns. They do get pretty traumatized to get from the ground at the nursery to the pot in my garden. The plants I buy intact from the nursery in-person can also suffer dieback first season or root-rot second season. I always attributed those issues to excessive fertilizer use and forcing by the grower for the nursery to make the plants looks great in the store. For example, poinsettias for the holidays seem to have far too much leaf for their roots.
And the remember the old adage, “Sleep, creep, leap.” Your debriding of dead roots and repotting with goal of better drainage should make a big difference…in 1-2 years. ;)

Sorry, Al. You are right. I didn't listen. I got stuck on making my water more acidic. I apologize. I will order that fertilizer on my next Amazon order. Thanks for sharing your knowledge with me.

bk

I did speak with our radio guru today. He told me to go easy with the fertilizer. He used the analogy of, "when someone has had major surgery, you don't want to give them a 7-course meal". He told me to go ahead and clean it out the soil a little better. He told me to add fine bark mulch and some expanded shale to my soil mix.

bkay

edited to add: He also told me to fertilize lightly with a water soluble fertilizer with trace elements, which is basically what Al recommended.

Your LS looks lush and healthy otherwise, going to wait for updated pic, bet couple of weeks will do the job.