ive got nearly 70 hostas in various parts of the yard, so im pretty good with them, but this has me a bit worried. this is our latest "June" hosta. we bought it three weeks ago to replace the one that was literally being shredded by slugs. I assume its a 3 year plant, judging by the amount of stems. it was LOADED! 5-6 of the stems however are starting to do this:



its very slowly increasing its way towards the rear of the leaf. im trying to be positive, thinking its a new plant and what not and it just needs time to develop some roots. im hoping like crazy that its not a disease or something... thoughts?

Sun scald?

nope. this plants literally gets no direct sun. its in a nook by the house where the sun cant reach it.

When I see that on a plant, it's usually caused by having been too dry. The dry spell may be a week or so before the evidence shows up in the leaf tips. Maybe it was allowed to get too dry before you acquired it? Or maybe it's an adjustment to a change in the amount of moisture between environments? Changing the environment causes a lot of foliage to be affected. I see a lot of it every year when I move things inside for the winter or back out for the summer. The difference in temperature, light, air circulation and humidity always cause some of the plants to react. Usually by dropping old leaves and growing new ones which are adjusted to the new environment. Except for that brown tip, it looks healthy otherwise. I don't have a lot of experience with hostas, though. They aren't too common in my part of the world. I'm having some success with one now that in it's third year here.

for the insight, Donald im hoping you're right. the plant is very healthy- or so the rest of it would appear... I was the envy of every customer at the nursery as I walked it up to the counter. I was surprised no one had bought it yet! i'll for sure be keeping a close eye on it.

Excess fertilizer can also cause the leaf tips to burn like that. Did you by chance give it a dose of soluble fert when you planted it? If so, that might have done it, since coming from the nursery, it probably already had some fertilizer in the pot. Take a look for colored (green, yellow or gray) pellets at the base of the leaves, and if you see them, that is pelleted fertilizer. Since the plant is so healthy, it probably had some.

A thorough flush with water (or rain) should stop it from happening any more.

Hi Jason. I agree with the info above. I did run across this from the Missouri Botanical Garden. This has a number of "Things that can go wrong with hostas" including pictures and basic remedies.

http://www.missouribotanicalga...

and this from PNW extension service

http://pnwhandbooks.org/plantd...

Elain - no, I didn't fertilize it when I planted it. we just used compost. threw some compost in with the native soil when we dug the hole. we used the composted soil to refill the hole once the plant was set in it. other than that.. nada.