We are faced with a devastating unexpected and unavoidable dig-up of our front yard due to sewer repairs. Our front gardens are large and established, and on Monday morning a track hoe is going to destroy half of it. We have two days to dig up and move what we would like to save, including some small shrubs.
The garden is ringed by large, mature hostas and some of them fall in the area that's to actually be dug out. We'll move at least some of those to save. However, the whole garden is bordered by similar mature hostas. The crew intends to drop plywood over part of the garden away from the trench on which to place excavated soil. If we allow the plywood to go down over the existing hostas in mid summer, can we hope or expect that they may return next spring, or will flattening by several yards of soil completely kill them?