Depends on what you find when you move some of that stuff (soil, media) off the crown. More likely it is 4 shoots off the same crown, or perhaps two divisions. If they are connected, you could divide it and make 4 separate plants. Let us know what you find hiding underneath. What size pot is that?

-Babka

oh. It was a quart pot i believe so i guess it could be more than one. I didn't buy it, i really didn't neeeeed it, but if it was four then i would definitely get it.

Nice find. It is your choice. 1,2,3, or 4 plants. You can divide now or let it go this year and see how you like the fuller look. If you divide now, I would knock off all the soil and see if they just pull apart. If you must cut, I'd try to make sure each piece would have a couple nice roots.

yea that's where my inexperience lays. I wasn't sure if the shoots meant that those are separate plants or not. Ill try to do some research but even once knock off all the dirt, what am i looking at to determine if they are separate plants or not ? I just thought that having multiple shoots or eyes whatever you call it, that they may be to crowded and i would need to separate in order to have healthy plants ? maybe not ? I get plants like liriope and daylilies, they are thin leaves that shoot up and clump, i wasn't sure it hostas were like that or not since they emerge out in a circular layout.

Hostas don't stay at one shoot per plant...as it grows, it'll have more and more shoots. You would have overcrowding if you had, let's say, one foot of space in between plants, since most hostas grow into pretty big circles as they add shoots or eyes on. But if you clump together several individual shoots into one "handful" to resemble one plant, I think it would remain looking like one plant. Hope that makes sense. I don't know how else to explain it.

If you remove all the soil, you'll see if the shoots are all from one crown or multiple crowns. If they're separate crowns, the shoots should separate readily, and their root masses should separate (with a little untangling) too. If they're from one crown, then you could only separate the shoots by breaking (cutting through) the crown in between the shoots.

I’ve found some potted hostas for sale will have four young plants stuffed into one pot. As they grow it looks full but they are yearlings so will take longer to mature.

if bigboxstore ... is was divided last fall .. and cold stored for a while ... then potted and sprouted for spring sale ...

odds that it can immediately be divided again .. and into 4 piece ... is .. imo .. low ...

but by fall .. or even next spring.. it should be dividable again ...

for sure.. you can cut it up if you insist ... but its more of a function of each piece having enough roots to prosper.. that first season ...

ken

From the look, I'm guessing that's SILVER STAR® (yes, a trade name for a variegated H. rectifolia). It tends to grow that way, with individual eyes connected by underground rhizomes (I know that's redundant) rather than forming off a central crown as most hostas do. It's best to keep this on in a pot, IMO, to keep it looking like a clump rather than like a stand of iris.

Looking more closely I see the pot says "Hosta variegated." That would not indicate SILVER STAR, but typically H. Undulata 'Albomarginata'. It grows like a weed, but it's an Undulata and so really doesn't like hot weather.