How to Divide a Hosta

Hi, this is Yolanda Vanveen from Vanveen Bulbs and we're learning how to divide Hosta's. Hosta's are one of my favorite shade plants because they grow so easily, they don't need a lot of care at all, kind of like a fern, they just grow and grow and give you so much lush greenery in your shade and they're such a pretty plant and they multiply quickly, which for me is nice because I like to sale the plants. So, I've got a clomp of hosta's right here that have divided quite well and, basically, if you've got a stem and a root then I can make a new plant. So, right here, there's probably, if I really wanted to divide it up, at least thirty plants in there. An easy trick that I found is go towards the middle or to the side, a little bit, and where a lot of the stems are meeting the earth and they're separated from the other stems, take a knife or the shovel and I just go straight down, softly, and then I dig it back up. So, an easy thing to do is actually cut off some of the green area. A lot of times when I divide plants, I like to get new growth anyway, this growth is getting a little bit ratty. An easy trick is to actually cut some of the plants off where I'm dividing them. If I cut the leaves off it's easier to see too and then I can go further down, I just dig it and separate it from the mother plant, basically. So now I have a completely other plant, I've got some stems and I've got some root and where everything meets, is where the mother plant is. So, I've still got this plant so all I do is kind of straighten that back in there and by next year, it'll be twice the size again and I can divide it again. So, it's very easy to divide hosta, as long as you got some root and some stem, you can make a new plant. You either put it back into the pot or back into the ground, right away, because I found if you leave them out of the ground for a long time, they can dry out and you can lose them and you don't ever want them to be too dry because they like to be on the wet side.