What's Eating My Hostas?
Hostas are the salad bar of the shade garden, and the two chief diners could not be less alike: one arrives on slime, the other on hooves. Hole size settles it instantly.
The usual suspects
Slugs and snails
The signs: Small-to-medium irregular holes peppering the leaf between veins, edges rasped, silvery trails glinting on morning leaves.
What it looks like: Night feeders sheltering under the leaf canopy and mulch by day; thin-leaved varieties suffer worst.
What to do: Iron phosphate bait in early spring as pips emerge, beer traps refreshed weekly, morning watering, and — the long game — replace favorites with thick, blue-leaved varieties slugs skip.
Deer
The signs: Whole leaves and stems bitten off to nubs — a bed of stalks overnight, ragged tear edges.
What it looks like: No insect takes a hosta to the ground in one night; hoofprints confirm.
What to do: Repellents rotated monthly from spring emergence, motion sprinklers, or fencing. Deer remember productive beds and return on schedule.
Rabbits
The signs: Clean 45-degree angled cuts on stems and leaves, lower than deer browse, spring-heavy on emerging shoots.
What it looks like: Neat scissor-work plus round droppings nearby.
What to do: Two-foot chicken wire around prized beds during spring emergence, when shoots are candy.
Voles
The signs: Whole plants wilting or tipping over — the roots and crown eaten from below via mulch-hidden runways.
What it looks like: Tunnel entrances the size of a golf ball near the crown.
What to do: Pull mulch back from crowns, trap runways in fall, and plant treasured divisions in wire baskets.
Cutworms and earwigs
The signs: Ragged holes appearing overnight with no slime trails.
What it looks like: Check by flashlight two hours after dark to catch the actual culprit.
What to do: Handpick night patrols; oil-can traps for earwigs at the crown.
When it's not a pest at all
Leaves scorched brown at the edges in a hot afternoon bed are sun and drought stress — most hostas want shade and steady moisture. A plant that collapses at the crown with white fungal threads at the base is southern blight, a soil disease, not an appetite.
Or just point your phone at it
Snap a photo of the leaf, the bug, or the droppings, and Harold — the advisor built into Homestead Paradise — names what he sees, tells you friend or foe, and what he'd do next. Honest when he's unsure, and careful where it counts.
Put Harold's Eyes on it — free 14-day trial