Yeah, it's tough. My garden is only five years old but it has really filled out this year and I'm starting to get nervous. I have my "giants" in their permanent homes and well spaced, I think, but it's those "mediums" I start to get nervous about. I was looking at Blue Cadet today thinking, "I thought you were done, and supposed to be small!!" I really do not want to have to divide to maintain size. I'm just not into that much work.

And it's not just hosta...some other perennials surprise me. I thought "Misty Lace" Aruncus was supposed to be a dwarf! It's like 3 feet high this year.

If you can wait for the hosta you can wait for the drooping wands of Solomens Seal growing in the space in between hosta. The daylily blades also are a nice contrasting folliage shape, grow fast, and are manageable. My best hosta bed is under a black walnut tree and daylilys tolerate juglone along with hosta and heuchera (and I think the hardy geranium I'm trying this year). I don't mind moving hosta though as long as I remember to do it B4 they are fully leafed out. But it is so cool watching them unfurl every spring that I always seem to be moving big leafy plants. That is really grunt work.
Les

I can't wait to have those problems! I only have a couple that even touch each other!

I have overcrowed my front bed, but there will be plenty of room to move them in the new bed that will be tilled later in the season. They should pop right out though since they're in 18 inches of new soil.

Gesila, please take our word for it. Plan to NOT have this problem! I'm on season 5 and I'm having problems already.

I feel for you.

I love Solomon's seal, hostales. But not between my hostas! I planted a few of those many years ago and the patch is now some 30' across, I finally had to dig out some Frances Williams that got lost in there. Still missing a couple of cats and a grandkid that I suspect may be in there someplace, lol! Just sayin', don't underestimate Solomon's seal either! You think hostas are hard to dig out?

I garden under black walnuts, also. Heucheras work, hardy geraniums, lilies, daylilies, azaleas, lots of native wildflowers, ferns, native woodland phlox, cimicifuga, tiarellas, catmint, gaura, dicentras, all kinds of things can go between the hostas.

I've learned to measure the distance the hostas will eventually claim, and plant accordingly. Tho I do sometimes plant the small guys in front, knowing I might have to move them one day. But they are easy to move. It's the giants that are not!

Thanks for the advice Melissa. I did resist the urge to put something between my Komodo Dragons. I ending up putting a fern to fill up the space.

I'll take a second look at the bed I'm working on now, I know I've put way too much in it, and it's one where I don't have any stepping stones and it will be hard to dig even medium hostas out of it.

Gesila

I'm just learning to love hostas! My trees are growing so tall, I have more and more shade. Don't want to touch those beautiful trees, so have started to learn about shade loving plants. This year was my first to divide existing hostas and move them around. Boy are they tough!
I can see why its so important to get to it before they unfurl. Even then, no spade or shovel worked, so I had to use a saw! It sounds awful, I know. They managed to fare well, despite my method.
Just planted a Sum and Substance obtained at a plant swap.
I gave it lots of room to spread. Still, some of the hostas I planted have gotten much bigger than I anticipated they would be. I have some major work cut out for me next Spring.
Mosswitch, I wish I knew more when I planted them originally, but I won't make that mistake again!
Susan

Thanks Mosswitch for the advice on Solomons Seal. I had dug up a few from a feral patch behind my daughters house and they didn't show the spreading you've just told us about. I think I will dig them out while I can.

I think I've underestimated Blue Angel. This is only year 2 in my walnut garden and they are already 36" across-wow. I do have a Sagae in an 8 foot space all by itself where it can be seen from the street. Same age as the Blue Angel but only 2 eyes and 24" across. Healthy as a horse though. Now that is one I hope to never move. I saw one at the nursery that had been lifted with its roots balled in burlap like a tree. The ball itself was close to 4 feet diameter and the foliage around 7 feet. "Wow" number 2.

Les

Let them all show off. I always give them at least four feet and often more. I have three 60plus-inchers in a row (Journey's End, Sun Power and Blue Angel), and they don't touch yet, though they may later this year.

Not kidding about the Solomon's seal! This is the giant variegated. I also have the plain green wild one which is not nearly as invasive, abut eventually they all make their way into the hostas and you can't get them out. I have a patch of disporum, the dwarf Japanese Solomon's seal relative, "fairy bells" which has also infiltrated a hosta bed. I may have to dig out the whole thing to get that stuff out of there. Never trust a Solomon's seal!

It does make a great backgrouond for the hosta bed tho, even if I have to keep digging them out around the edges every year!

PS if it says this photo no longer exists, close the link and reopen it. It's there.

Here is a link that might be useful: Variegated solomon's seal

Now ya'll quit knocking Solomom's Seal! I only have one and it comes up every year with a pathetic 3 eyes,never any more. On the other hand I have false Solomons seal which abound in my woods. Even they aren't invasive! I garden around all the native plants,Trilliums,ferns, Jack-in-the-Pulpit,and False Solomons seal,and everybody in the garden is happy! That's my opinion,and I'm stickin' to it! Phil

I like Solomons Seal. This little patch has been there behind Green Fountain for about 10 years and I have only removed very little of it just two years ago. It gets watered often. I planted some at the other end of the house where it doesn't get watered very much and it is stunted and sparse.
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You are lucky to be able to keep it in bounds. I have three patches, each one has invaded the whole bed, one 30' across, one about 20', and the other is working on that size too. It's invaded the lawn (in the last case, both the variegated and the wild green). I'd dig it out but it's too much work, I just live with it and chop it out around the edges. I say you all just go ahead and take your chances. I do agree that it's pretty. Especially with mayapples in the spring and it's a beautiful background for the hostas, especially with a stout root barrier to keep it out of the hosta bed!.

The Japanese honeysuckle on my fence was once well-behaved, too.......

My Solomon's seal never gets supplimental water. It lives off the rain in our rocky Ozark soil and loves it.

Just so people know, Solomons Seal is a very strong plant. It can split open a very thick growers pot and escape. I had some in a heavy duty one gallon pot sitting on the driveway for a couple of years and it split the pot right open. Just in case you use a growers pot as a barrier for it.

I ripped out the honeysuckle that I had planted two years ago in four spots along a chainlink fence. That stuff went crazy and rooted everywhere.

Yeah,don't even get me started about wild Honeysuckle! It grows rampant here in my woods. Before I did my southeast garden,I had to clear out the whole area of the stuff. It climbs trees and the roots are so dense you can hardly walk through it! I'll take false Solomons Seal any day! I have to constantly beat back the Honeysuckle,to keep it from coming back into the garden. Phil

The wild (false) Salomon Seals seed around a lot, need to keep after them. But the variagated version is shallow rooted and after lifting with a fork easily pulled out and placed elsewhere.
I like to read this thread. So there is a future for my very small Dancing in the Rain, will get huge some year, and Journey's End will become big, only patience is needed. I am not new to "re"moving hostas, have a chromed very sharp spade and trained myself in moving large green and albomarginated hostas in pieces into large garden refuse paper bags for recycling quickly two years ago after I discovered all those nice plants shown in the Hosta Library.
Bernd

My Solomans Seal is not the false one. It is the "Giant Solomons Seal" that has not been contained. When I lifted it from my daughters I was surprised how shallow rooted the rhizomes were and not at all massed together like Iris become. Regardless, I have no desire for it to get tangled up with my hosta. A couple of days ago I dug up a mature plantaginea my neighbor wanted thinned out and almost had a heart attack doing it. It was tight against her garage and I couldn't get leverage on that side. Its roots were totally entangeld with the plantaginea next to it. Talk about sweating in 90 degree heat to break it free! Not fun at all. But it now sits in with my Guacamole, Fragrant Bouquet, and Invincible with a 2 foot space around it (as soon as I move the young Earth Angel to my Theresa'a Angel Garden - LOL). Moving young Hosta are soooooo easy aren't they). Where did I read to use twine and duct-tape when moving mature big Hosta. Must have been a red-neck thing. Just kidding. I moved a pickup and a fishing boat load of my Hosta to Illinois from Arkansas when I moved here in 1994 and used "duck" tape myself. My S&S was protected from the wind in a huge clear plastic bag with big cooling holes cut into it. A 10 hour trip in 90 degree full sun. Now that is moving hosta, friends!

I guess the difference in all your giant Solomon's seal and mine is that mine has been in the ground for over 20 years and has had plenty of time to get those huge root masses developed. It takes a lot of sweat and a pick to get those guys loose, not shallow rooted at this point.

HostaLes, you sound like a man with experience at moving the big guys! If you're bored, when I get around to moving mine, I could use a man with shovel eexpertise, lol!

I already have an eye on a spot for a new bed to put the overgrown hostas! Then I'm never gonna move them again!Come next spring, I hope to have it ready if I pick at it a little at a time all summer, line it with newspaper, pile it with lots of compost in the fall and let it work until planting time. It's an area about 15'x30' so it should hold quite a few hostas and keep me from complaining that I have no more room, for a while! Of course, there are already some plants in there, a huge stand of Virginia bluebells, some iris, Miss Lingard phlox, and a few wildflowers, so I have to work around those. Hmm. Maybe it isn't big enough!

Sandy