Viewing post #884900 by Brinybay

sooby said:I'm not a hosta expert although I grow a number of them, but it looks more like a rhizome than a root to me. Regardless, underground damage to hostas around here is by voles. They can burrow under a hosta and eat away all the roots so that you can lift up a "hosta pancake", the top part of the plant lifts right off the ground with nothing left to anchor it. I Googled to see if there were any pictures on the web of hosta rhizomes and found this one (scroll down the page to the picture), which coincidentally has been decimated by voles:

https://www.bridgewoodgardens....

We have many rabbits around here and they sit right by the hostas but I've never had any damage below the ground from them. They may eat the leaves occasionally but I'm never sure if that's bunnies or deer. There's a couple of pics of vole damage to a hosta from Missouri Botanical Garden:

http://www.missouribotanicalga...
http://www.missouribotanicalga...

Thanks for all that. I suspect there may be a vole around here. I've had trouble with moles in the past, but not on this side of the property. While I really would prefer to co-exist with most wildlife (exception is rats, they're pure vermin), there's a limit. Moles and voles I would rather they just went away. I'm not averse to lethal methods if I have to and they're effective, but from my experience with moles, the only thing that seemed to have some impact were castor-oil based products.