hostas

When is the best time to split hostas?

Hello Mindalina!
I was just searching our collection of gardening books and the plantfiles here at Dave's Garden for the same info! http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/finder/index.php?sname=Hostas
We have 3 varieties of Hostas here... "Francee", "June" and "Patriot"... and all have nearly tripled in size in the last 2 months! I want to split and relocate some of ours before we risk them choking out other plants... but I'm trying to hold out until they have finished blooming!
The books we have say to plant "established plants" in spring or fall... so I would think splitting established plants would follow the same guidelines. However... for as hearty as our plants are here (we live in Delaware - zone 7a)... I'd be more than willing to bet I could split them right now with no ill effects!!!
For the record... I give ours a light watering every 2 to 3 days unless they get a good 20 minutes of rain due to the other plants we have located near them.
To give you an idea of the growth rate we see here... I'll post a photo taken May 1st this year in a blanket of Cherry Blossom Tree "snow"... then I'll reply with a photo taken today for comparison. Hope this helps!
Blessings & 73!!!
Wendy & Will,

... and here's a photo taken today for comparison. Hope this helps!
Blessings & 73!!!
Wendy & Will,

Hello again Mindalina!
We were ready to freshen up and divide some of our bearded Iris's today... so we decided to go ahead and see if the Hostas can be split & moved this time of year (even though they still had blossoms)... so we could re-arrange one of our garden plots while we were at it!
We dug 3 of our larger Hosta plants out of the ground... split each into 3 sections... and relocated them. We also re-located 3 smaller Hostas without splitting them.
I did use a "growth hormone" product on the scraped side of the roots where we separated them... and added a little slow release fertilizer on the ground over them after re-planting.
With the July temperatures climbing here in Delaware (along with humidity so thick it'll almost choke you)... I would imagine it should only take 2 to 3 weeks at best to see if it was sucessful or not!
Feel free to email or D-mail for updates if I forget... but I'll try to remember to post an update & a new pic in about a month. I'm also posting a reference pic here for comparison next month.
Talk Soon!
Blessings & 73!!!
Wendy & Will,

Well, it's only been 14 days since the last photos we took on the Hostats... but these plants have perked up sooo well I don't think we need to wait out a full month for an update!
The last photo was July 6th when we split and transplanted them... and you could easily see they were drooping quite a bit in that photo.
Now in the photo I'm posting here from July 20th, you can see they've perked right up and are doing fine! Now these Hostas will fill out to form an "outside border" around about half of this particular flower bed!
Atleast as far as zone 7A is concerned... I'd say it's a safe bet you can split your Hostas in mid-summer as well as spring or fall! Just keep an eye on them and give them some water as needed!!!
I hope our little experiment here helped!
Blessings & 73!
Wendy & Will,

I had to move a large Hosta last year in July. It drooped but came right back. Mine had not started to bloom when I moved it. Had it done so, I would have removed them to direct plant's energy to become established. Anytime you transplant, you have balance the growth with the root system and remove 1/3 of growth. It is then less foliage for the plant to support while it is becoming established. .