Mary, If you have The Hosta Handbook by Mark Zilis, the spacing between hostas is suggested by Mark for various hostas.

Hostas will grow as follows:

By height:
Mini Small 6" to 10 "
Medium 10" to 18"
Large 18" to 28"
Huge > 28 inches

By diameter:
Mini Dwarf 10" to 24"
Small 24" to 36"
Medium 37" to 48"
Large 49" to 70"
Huge > 70 inches

As for me I use 7 feet between huge (giant) hostas...
I use 6 feet between large hostas....
I use 5 feet between a large and medium hosta....
I use 4 feet between medium hostas...
I use 3 feet between small hostas.

Papou

lets call 70" ---->>>>> 6 feet ... give or take two "

anyway .... that means 3 feet on each side of the crown .... not 6 feet ...

so to be safe.. i would put the next hosta about 4 feet away ...

ken

If you are planting giant hosta...like Elegans, Sum and substance and you never want to have to move them, you need to plant the crowns 6 feet apart...3 feet from the crown to the outside edge of one, and another 3 feet from the outside leaves of of the next one to the crown.
Sorry ken but your math is faulty...I did that sort of figuring once and ended up moving a giant Sum and Substance!
But if you are successful in never having to move a hosta, you are better than I am...
I try very hard to never have to move the big ones, but I often get a surprise or don't really know how big a hosta can get, or find one that would be better than something else I have placed in a certain grouping...
On the very few occasions when I have planted a new hosta area, I try to place the "special" ones where they will stay, then fill in with an eye or so pried off of an existing clump of something that I have a lot of....then as the "special" ones grow, you can remove the bits of the fillers and give them away.
Linda C

As long as you have the normal widths of the hostas involved, you can take half of each width and add them together. A 6-foot plant is a 3-foot width. If you want to plant it next to a 5-foot plant, that is a 2-1/2 foot width. Adding them together is 5-1/2 feet apart.

You can also consider the growing habit. A Regal Splendor may not actually touch a Choo Choo Train because the leaves are much higher.

So far, I don't have any hostas touching. But Sun Power and Blue Angel are getting very close although I planted them nearly six feet apart. They will look good barely touching anyway. The Blue Angel is low at the edges, and Sun Power is high.

This doesn't fit the normal including me but planting a group of a var the move some distance away can help. Then fill in between after some years or pots even big pots then move to the ground.

Look at some of heyj's photos who uses a lot of containers.

Back to the idea of say 3 of one variety, if they grow together it doesn't look like a jumble.

This advice is more out of my thinking than my behavior.

Here are a few photos of groupings that can grow together, all over each other and still look ok. Not "the" way to do it but a paradigm if you have the space as I do.

The first is a year old planting of 6 of the same var in the shape of a big triangle then this year I planted a small blueish on the right in a straight line up the side of this triangle, the colors are the same so if they

You guys must all have huge lots. If I left 6 feet between my hostas, I'd have about 15 instead of slightly over 100. I know I will be hating myself when I have to start thinning them out, but I couldn't stand to see an empty spot when there was a variety I just had to have, but didn't. As it is, I'm agonizing over a spot just vacated by an HVX casualty. It just sits there, yawning at me.

Here is a spot planted with 4 Junes like a diamond then one reverted to blue so I left it to show what happens. It fits my idea of planting colors that will blend if they get over grown.

At first:

A year later

After another year:

And this year it's a crowded mess....camera needs recharging...but believe me it's crowded!
Linda C

I am the resident expert on how to overcrowd hostas. I say whatever the listed spread is, add a foot. I have only had a few hostas that did not greatly exceed the "listed" size, and that was either because they died, or they were so crowded they didn't have a chance to grow bigger.

I think I am counting 16 hostas in this picture from 2006!!!

This is the same area this year, reduced to 7, not counting those that were not in the frame of the previous pic.

A couple I moved out of the area because they were so crowded. Others died of MTR disease. They were smaller one year and didn't come back the next!

The ones that are left are still too crowded, IMHO, no matter how much I like that lush look.

Dave

PS: I just noticed, what the heck happened to my grass at the edge of the landscape timbers?? I think I might be getting a littl agressive with my weedeater!!

Thanks all for your help--it feels so good to have a fresh new concept of what I'm doing--it seems so easy now. However, I'm going to bookmark this thread because of all the figures written out for my use. Papou--sadly I don't have the Zill"s book so appreciate your copying the information plus including the figures you use for spacing. Ken--now I get the "half" measurements. Linda--I like your idea for a filler (which I will need some of), and I love that dog! Exo--I hadn't thot of considering the different H heights. EO--I love the space you have and how you use it. I wish I could plant grand arrangements like that. Your June group is very interesting. Plus you use more leaves than I do!!! I will take pics and show you this new bed in next summer's thread on growing year by year.

Yes, you can read all the sweeping generalizations and try to use them as a general guideline. But nature will take care of a lot more than you plan on. Drought will keep them smaller, a rainy season will produce giants, trees coming down that once created mostly shade will allow them to morph into something completely unexpected - giants. I have watched every one of mine (250+) behave differently over 22 years. I do a LOT of moving and dividing. And crying when they 'go away' for no apparent reason.

Westy

It is hard to not want the big vigorous growers but small plants can be used and arranged to get the effect you want without the war of giants.

The garden that really started my wife's interest was quite a small lot and so carefully done re spacing that it was simply a jewel.

Sometimes the problem is how you look at the problem. Hey_j uses whiskey barrels and other pots to create height which adds space and allows one to control size and proportion. She started a couple of threads where people posted areas progressing.

Good luck, you are battling the hardest part of hosta collecting and one most of us lose.

Hope this photo captures the beauty of this little spot, Jack of Diamonds and a couple of unnamed small blues, I could not put anything else here or lose the beauty.

Thanks for all your info. I finished the Hosta planting today, and they seem so far apart and tiny. But if all works out, that should be good. Now I'm going to throw in some Huecheras, wild ginger, Brunneria, Astilbe, and ferns. Then I will mulch it and water it and look forward to next spring. I love-love-love it!!!! Mary

"Then I will mulch it and water it and look forward to next spring."
Mary

Do look forward to next year but wait for 5 years to decide if you have good spacing, no sooner because you won't know until then.

Not much fun for a collector!

I was outside this evening until exhaustion and mosquitoes ( I sweated off the OFF!!) drove me in...and I am amazed at what a 2 eye start of hosta will do in 2 summers. The hosta I planted in 06 are amazing! The bed I started by stuffing some stuff in the ground in a bare spot under a tree in mid summer of 05, needs the "filler hosta" removed.
I am a firm believer in Alfalfa pellets and water....and lots of wood chips!!
Linda C

I say plant one in your front yard and then one in your back yard and see if never there twain shall meet!! I'm so sorry folks, but i just could not help myself!!

Paul

Paul,
I started out following your advice but somehow 1398 more seemed to slide into the picture!

Denny

Paul--you are a real fun addition to our jovial, and many that are well informed,
congregation of hosta enthusiast! I love your humor!!! I hope you will hang with us long!!

Just the other day I was looking at a bunch of Papou's garden pictures and was thinking, "He does a great job on the spacing." I like his suggested spacing - it keeps it simple.

Linda, what are alfalfa pellets, where do you get them, how do you use them, and what do they do for the Hosta?????? How's that for interrogation--if that's a word! According to spellcheck (my nemesis) it's not!! LOL Mary

Alfalfa pellets are rabbit food, that not only are a source of Nitrigen, Phosphorous and Potash but also of some magical enzyme that activates soil bacteria...yadda yadda yadda....and makes your plants do amazing things.
My spellcheck knows interrogation....maybe yours needs some help?
Linda C

Here is a link that might be useful: alfalfa

Wasn't there a thread a couple of years back, where someone asked "Are you a spacer and a placer or a digger and a mover" or something to that effect? I can't seem to get it out of my mind but I'm sure I don't have it quite right either....

Please check here How Far Apart to Plant Hostas (All About Hosta Spacing)