When can location in garden be replanted?

[loisf]

I'm afraid I may have a Niagara Falls that is infected with HVX. After I dig out and destroy the plant, how long must I wait before I can replant in the same spot? Is there some way to clean the soil so it can be replanted sooner?
Thanks.

[newtohosta-no more]

I have read different opinions about this, but generally you must wait til any and all plant material (like roots) from the infected plant are completely dead. Most people tend to wait an entire season before using the same spot.

[jobranch]

That is what Chris told me when I had to remove an infected Paul's Glory, wait a year so that the roots are dead.

[loisf]

Thanks. That was what I was afraid of. Horrors... a hole in my hosta garden. I'm going to post a photo to see what you experts think of my Niagara Falls. Lois

[mcplant]

I remember reading a thread where the consensus seemed to be that the best way to dispose of an infected plant was to leave it in the sun until and beyond being dried up. How does that equate with simply waiting a year in a garden spot?
Dennis

[Pieter]

the best way to dispose of an infected plant was to leave it in the sun until and beyond being dried up

That indeed applies to the plant and it's just making sure the plant has died and there is no more living tissue -either from the Hosta itself or from whatever virus may have been present, before it is finally disposed of. But that has nothing to do with the hole it was planted in.

The HVX virus lives in the plant's sap. Whenever you dig up a Hosta there will be some roots left behind in the soil and those of course will be cut and have open surfaces from which the sap can flow. For as long as those roots are still there, the virus will still be in those roots. In the roots, not in the soil. The HVX virus cannot survive in the soil, it is carried only in the plant sap. As long as there are roots with sap that still carry the virus you are taking a chance of those injured/cut roots coming into contact with the roots of whatever new Hosta you're placing there and you will take a chance on infecting the new plant. Once the roots are dead, the virus they carried at one time is now dead as well.

Odds are you'll be safe in about 10-12 weeks after removal because it is highly unlikely for broken off roots to have survived for that long. But if you really don't wish to take a chance, take the soil through the season into the next to make sure winter will have killed off whatever residual roots there may have been left. If you just cannot wait, you might want to plant the new Hosta into a suitably sized gardener's pot and the pop it out of the pot next year.....

[mcplant]

Thanks Pieter for your explanation. Do I understand correctly that the roots cannot survive ( no photosynthesis, no transpiration) without the upper plant parts and that given enough time they will dehydrate even though the surrounding hosta bed is constantly moist?
Dennis

[Pieter]

Dennis, they simply wilt and die. Eventually they rot. But, as longs as the roots are even marginally viable they contain sap and if there was HVX, that will be there as long as there is sap running through those roots.