It can depend greatly on which hosta you're dividing. There are some we divide using a machete and rubber mallet! Others will break apart easily by just sticking the hori-hori in and giving a pry/twist. And, as you note, some (minis, especially) can just be teased apart, where the connecting rhizomes aren't much bigger than a normal root.

what do you all expect me to say ... lol ..

you could have thrown them on the driveway.. and used the car to divide them ... lol ..

ken

Like you, Linnea I am no stranger to dividing hostas. Usually I have a bit of damage if I cut rather than hose off soil and look for ideal separation. Coincidentally, however, yesterday presented me with the same challenge you just experienced.

While attempting to remove a sporting division from Electrocution without sustaining any damage (I was lucky) ... I had to take along two divisions of the mother plant, plus there are two tiny shoots growing as well that stayed attached. This was the toughest division I have ever encountered to date ...on a very small hosta. It was so tightly packed, with umpteen shoots, with no visible separation of roots... similar to what you describe.

It was sheer luck (must have had a Hosta angel watching over me) that my apprehensive shallow cut (with shaking hands) was just enough to separate it - not even a root was damaged...I don’t think it was skill, just some really good luck! like that will ever happen again lol.

As DTeager commented, it depends greatly on which hosta you’re dividing. I don’t think I’ll have the nerve to tackle this one again if another sport rears it’s pretty little head!

Good luck and steady hands :-) with the mini - maybe you will find natural separations once you hose it clean. Let us know how it goes.

Some hostas have very dense, wood-like crowns. Frosted Jade is one of the worst, I got a mature clump dug out, could not get it cut with any of the usual implements, finally resorted to my heavy duty Japanese pruning saw.Even with that, I had to cut completely through the entire crown to separate anything. I now have 5 large clumps, which I will someday sell as entire clumps, never going to divide another FJ!

To do the least damage, I recommend that after you dig up the entire clump, you brush off as much soil as possible for best visibility. Don't wash the roots, it destroys all the micro-roots and sets the plant back a year or two. It also leaves you with a muddy mess which can glue the roots together more firmly rather than loosening the roots. Look the crown over carefully, and make your cuts from the sides inward, going no further than the size of division you want, and cutting only the crown, not the roots. When you have both cuts made for the first piece, carefully begin to remove it, gently untangling the roots as you go. Don't pull or twist the roots if you can avoid it, slow and steady is the way to go. Shaking the plant up and down can help loosen things up if necessary.

Once the first piece is removed, look the crown over again and select the next piece you want to remove. This will be the method least likely to do damage to the plant. Takes a bit longer than simply cutting the crown in half, then quarters or whatever size, slicing through the roots as you go, but it's worth it to retain as much crown, root, and leaves as possible.

That said, I routinely whack plants into 2 division pieces, cutting straight through the crown and then pulling the roots apart, but ONLY when I'm dividing things like lancifolia and huge clumps of common varieties.

I use a sharp knife to perform the separation at the crown.

If just removing side shoots to give away to friends and family, I use either a weeding tool (screwdriver-like with sharp forked tip) or a bulb planter (looks like a narrow shovel with a sharp tip), depending on the size of the shoots and crown thickness. This method leaves your plant undisturbed - so no setback that I have ever noticed.

I also use a sharp serrated butcher knife and only cut from a side piece so as to leave the main bulk of the plant in place in the ground. Then I use a shovel to dig out the piece that I cut through the crown on. If it is sizeable, I will take it to my potting bench and make further cuts with the knife to get smaller divisions. Never had any setback on the piece that stays in the ground.

This one was also harder than I hoped. I have 3 plants total, all about 3 years old. First I tried slicing into one while it was in the ground, from the side and top, but found all I did was cut off eyes with no crown or roots attached. Ouch! The eyes on the sides were all coming up curved. So then I didn’t have enough left on that one to work with.

I moved on to the next and forked it up totally. Once out of the ground, I was able to separate sections with a fork. Something more stout would be helpful to pry with in the future. None of my other tools had the right shape to get in there.

They are still kind of beaten up, but I will tell the recipients to let them rest potted and to wait awhile before planting.

I soaked it, banged it over and over on a sharp landscape boulder,
soaked it some more, beat it some more, and the roots still wouldn't
loosen even a little bit. I sawed it in two with an old, dull serrated
kitchen knife and banged them on the boulder awhile longer.

==>>> now this is my kind of effort.. lol ...

btw.. dollar store is a great place for large knives for the garden ...

ken

Thrift stores are another great place for large garden knives, my favorite one usually has a good selection for $1 or less. Smaller knives are around 50 cents, also useful in the garden. My tool bucket always includes a large bread knife, smaller knife is added when I'm going to be working with minis.

I divided my first hosta today - Broad Band. Had to do some hacking myself. We shall see.......

Bread knife is a good idea. I have a nice serrated knife from Lee Valley garden tools, but it does not have enough stiffness or bulk for the really woody stuff.

I was at a garden swap yesterday. Someone brought in a big NOID hosta: some kind of mediovariegata, but a little different: big leaves and no curling. 4 of us wanted it. The organizer or someone had brought in a big butcher knife. I went to it and sliced that baby into 4 parts, with the others holding it down for surgery and prying as needed. I wanted it for a friend who needs just any kind of hosta for coverage. I'll take a closer look today and see if I want part of it myself, though I have been buying only named hostas since I got seriously into this addiction.

I also got a clump around a foot in diameter rootball of one that really looks like Blue Cadet. I will post later and ask what it is. No one else wanted it so I took the whole thing. That too should be divided, probably.

Well, it did SOME damage, and I wouldn't try it on a mini, but I just divided a monstrous old Antioch. Dug the whole thing out of the ground, couldn't find an open spot to get started, and finally pried it apart using two back to back pitchforks driven through the middle of the clump. Then I split the halves the same way until they were small enough to pot.