Hi Sandy, Hostas have two pests that make them looked rough; slugs and deer. If you have holes in the leaves, even though you don't see the slime trails, slugs are eating them. If you want to check this out for yourself, go out LATE on a warm moist evening or VERY early (before sun-up) in the morning, with a flashlight and look to see what is on your plants. You can also set some 'bait' around them and possibly see them earlier in the evening instead of waiting until very late. Some 'bait' could be freshly eaten corn cobs or cantalope rinds. When you find them you can kill them. Something we wittness after smashing slugs is that their fellow slug friends are attracted to the dead smashed bodies and start to feed on them. Which acts also as bait. I like to say they come in for slug funerals. The easiest slug deterents I have found are 'Escar-Go' from Gardens Alive and coarse swimming pool sand. The 'Escar-Go' is organic but will kill the slugs. You can find Gardens Alive on our 'Market Place' page, 'Home' page, button on the left side. I like the fact that I am actually making a sizeable dent in the slug population using 'Escar-Go'.
The coarse swimming pool sand only keeps them from getting on the plants, it doesn't kill them. It must be the 'coarse' type, they don't like to crawl accross it. This is best applied in the spring just as the hostas are coming up, it is just easier then than trying to lift the leaves and put the sand around the plants. You only need to apply the sand once. I like to use both methods for hostas because they are so prone to slug damage. That way the hostas don't get those holes all over them before I remember to put out the Escar-Go.
You can cut back any leaves that look real bad. The season is almost over so maybe it doesn't matter much now.
The yellow brown edges on the leaves usually mean lack of water. Did you suffer from a drought this summer, like we did in Michigan? (I don't know where you live but I see that you are the same zone as us.)
The nice things about perennials that you always have next year to get them looking better. Since your hostas are several years old now, perhaps next spring you would want to divide them. If so, let me know and I will tell you how.
There are some other questions on this site about slugs, they are titled 'Plants with holes...' and 'Slug Extenction', that you might want to check out.
Happy Harvest Season, Diane
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