haha! We've had a REALLY tough "summer" here... it started raining in Mid-May, got cold, and continued to rain through the first week in July -- when my entire village was flooded for the first time in recorded history! Then we had a week of extreme heat, then cold and rain again, and basically generally crappy weather for gardening (or anything else). :p
Some of my hostas look like complete crap... the slugs and snails are having a field day because the mosquitos are SO BAD that you can't be outside to do anything. I'm looking at some and thinking that I'd be better off just hacking away ALL the leaves to let them start to re-grow now that the weather is stabilizing. Good idea or bad?
~~~ Audrey ~~~
“If you never did you should. These things are fun and fun is good”
Dr. Seuss
This late in the year, I think I would just leave them alone and dream of how great they will look in the spring. If you cut them all back now and they do send out new leaves, you're pushing next year's dormant buds.
And time remembered is grief forgotten,
And frosts are slain and flowers begotten.....
Algernon Charles Swinburne
Party_Music50, would you please send me back your weather. Out here in the PNW, we have seen weather so dry all the hostas are fried. I am so sick of the hot weather and dragging the hoses out to water, I'm looking forward to winter. I cut ours back all the time, sorry to say. The front ones that take the full sun get cut back around the 4th of July as they start to yellow, yes they grow back and look nice in the fall. Some will tend to loose their variegation but they come back like crazy as the variegation returns. The back yard is so full of the neighbors falling leaves and pine needles that it's chocking the smaller plants. I'm not saving seeds so I started cutting back the smaller ones first. I also noted that Sage is starting to yellow and that plant is huge this year. I pulled back the leaves to check the base of the plant and it's under 8" of pine needles, so she will be getting cut back later in the week when I have an empty yard debris bin. We will have at least another two month of growing season.
karma 'Happy Toes' (kHT)
The Goddess is Alive and Magic is Afoot!!!!
I'm just a simple housewife.
I agree with Linda that you don't want to just cut them down now. We clean up some of the bad outer leaves here and there, especially because some of those were damaged by a late April frost and look horrible now, but it is so late in the year that you don't want to remove all of them.
Hopefully next year will be better and if there is a silver lining here, I bet your hostas are growing some amazing roots and crowns this summer and will be bigger and better next summer
Darn. I liked Karma's answer best. lol! But since everyone with a growing season similar to mine says to NOT cut them back now, I won't. :p
All the rain we got made my hostas huge this year -- and their flowers are unbelievably beautiful!!! It's been nice to not have to water for months, but trust me, kHT, you wouldn't want that much. We were averaging 6" a week for almost two months!
Thanks, everyone!
PS: the weather has been so wacky that a local u-pick place opened for PEA picking yesterday! we usually pick peas in June here.
~~~ Audrey ~~~
“If you never did you should. These things are fun and fun is good”
Dr. Seuss
Sounds like our so called summer the last 2 years
The last 7 weeks have been hot- for us- with one (but it was good) rain. Some hostas look tired, but others look good...
After 2 years with hardly no summer I gladly give water until November... if I can have some nice temps
Remember the slug baits very late in the fall after your wet summer and then again very early in spring .. killed most of mine
Pia
Against stupidity the gods themselves struggle in vain.
E-mail for pics hostapics@gmail.com
Pia, there is no hope of me ever getting rid of the slugs and snails... my yard borders a huge field that's full of them! After a good rain you can stand near the field's edge and watch hundreds of them march into my yard. LOL! That field also brings me mice, snakes, bunnies, deer, birds, mosquitoes, etc. It used to bloom beautifully in the late summer and autumn because it was full of goldenrod and some NY purple asters. New owners in the past few years have tried to keep it mowed down in an effort to cut back on the mosquito population. I miss those wildflowers!
Good luck for better weather to everyone!
~~~ Audrey ~~~
“If you never did you should. These things are fun and fun is good”
Dr. Seuss
.. killed most of mine 
