Not for about 6 years, if they survive. Am I correct in assuming that you bought a bag full of small bareroot Hosta? First of all it will take a very long time for them to gain a decent size. Secondly, you will be very lucky if those plants are healthy. You would be much better off buying Hosta Liners. Try hostaliners.com. Those plants will be small, but at least they will be guaranteed virus free and nematode free.

Steve

Hi, Teresa. I see you joined GardenWeb today.Welcome to the forums.

If your new home is in an established neighborhood where gardens are fully grown in, sometimes you can find folks living close by who have some big clumps of hosta.

I highly recommend that you take a walk around your streets and watch for folks out working in the garden. If they have hostas planted, stop and chat with them. We do that on a regular basis down here, and I discovered that folks up north are more friendly than they are given credit for too. My DH (Dear Husband) has populated his neighborhood for the last 40 + years with some of the dark green-white margined hosta, and you may find someone nearby who will give some of their extra plants to you too.

These won't take as long to get growing, if you keep them in good size clumps and not split them off too small.

If you are new to gardening too, and know little about growing hosta, this forum has a list of FAQs which will help get you jump started. The plants are hardy, but it will help if you know something about growing them.

The easiest shortcut to get bigger plants faster with what you are buying is to plant 3 or 4 of the same kind together or spaced 6" apart in a triangle or square. Your bare root crowns will keep growing all Spring getting fuller. They will grow the slowest for the first year. The second year they will grow a little faster as the roots are more established. The third year they will grow at more of a normal speed which will be faster than the previous two years as long as you do not dig them up. Each time they are dug up and moved you start over.

If I want several of a kind, sometimes I'll buy a big overgrown pot of hostas and divide it. I can occasionally find one at a nursery (last year's plants) or at the hosta society auctions.

ASandy

the usual stuff ... offered in boxes or plastic packages .. are the workhorse .. grow like a weed hosta ... and SHOULD perform faster than some of the suggestions above ...

roots alone will not live ..

what you should have there.. is a root.. attached to a piece of crown .. with an 'eye' coming off the top of the crown material ... and if that is what you have.. you should be all set .. [i am teaching you the terms]

but do understand they are a very long lived perennial.. and can take years.. to grow to ultimate size ... have patience ...

the 'eye'.. should have been planted.. basically at the soil surface ... not below ... reset them.. if you planted them too deep ..

my usual cliche.. is that THEY CAN GROW ON THE DRIVEWAY, w/o soil ... so plant them.. and enjoy their growth .. come back often.. we like to enable new peeps ...

ken

Thank you for the info. I had bought several potted hosta last year at walmart (sorry if that's bad!) on clearance at the end of the season. They are almost twice the size as they were when I planted them in the fall. The ones I planted that are bare root had 1-3 eyes (I think) per section. They seem to be ok. ...not dead anyway! We do live in an established neighborhood and there are hosta around but I feel weird asking people for them! We do have some established in our yard as well but I just love the look of them so I want more!

Of course you want more, just be warned: Hostas are extremely addicting and since there are well over 400 different species well let's just say that the collecting never ends :)

Welcome to GardenWeb!

There are well over 7,000 varieties of hosta.

Taxonomists differ on the number of hosta species; there may be as many as 45 species.