I've cut off bits of crowns leaving no attached roots many times. I stick them in the dirt next to the parent plant and water. They root. You may have luck giving it some TLC in a pot. Keep it moist and good luck. There's a ton of life-sustaining energy stored in the white crown of a hosta.

But Ken, how would YOU do it?

I suppose I can dig up the whole plant and divide it that way. But when you only want a piece, seems like a lot of trauma to the plant. Not to mention a mess, after having had 11" of rain within the last week.

She only has a deck in the city, not a yard. So it will not be planted in the ground for the foreseeable future. I will have to nurse along this traumatized baby myself and cut her a new one.

But she grew Mighty Mouse in a pot last year and really loved it. Stored it under her deck for the winter. So I walked around sending her pics of mine to share.

I see the word crown used all the time and interpret that to mean the woody part that the shoots emerge from at the top, and the roots at the bottom. But maybe I don't understand it as well as I had thought : if I could cut through it - judging by the resistance I felt as I pushed the knife down - and end up without it.

I think of the hosta crown as the dense white part at the bottom of the leaf petiole, just above where the roots start. I've ended up with leaves, petioles, and dense white part but absolutely no roots at all, and had them produce roots easily with almost no attention from me.

When descriptions of the hosta's crown online use the word "woody," I don't understand. I have to guess what they mean.

Wood is quite stiff and difficult to bend. It has a grain, so that when it is split, it comes apart in a somewhat stringy way. "Wood" comes in stems and trunks and branches, and it has a layer of bark on its outside. None of those descriptors match any part of the hostas I've owned.

I have committed hosta murder accidentally several times trying to get a start for a new area. When I just get the leaves I put them in water on the kitchen window sill and they usually develop roots. I have 3 jelly jars of hosta leaves in the window now because of my oopsies for the new hosta bed. They have all started to root. I will pot them when they have more roots. Hostas are a very forgiving plant.

That's impressive that you could pot up just leaves and have them root! What an easy method of propagation! I need to give that a try.

Does it work with single leaves, or just a cluster of leaves connected at the base? Because that's what I had the first time.

I dug up the whole plant to divide today. It was still really difficult to pry apart any sections. I had a lot of loose leaves lying on my potting bench by the time I was done.

Many hosta leaves will root readily in the spring, but not in the summer or fall. Keep the cuttings in a shady area, and pot or put in the ground as soon as the roots look adequate to support the plant, and keep it well watered.

Cuttings that have a portion of the crown attached will generally root more readily, and sometimes into the summer. This does not work with all hostas, but a surprising number of varieties will root. You can use a rooting hormone powder in the water, but I prefer to take some willow cuttings and put those in the water with the hosta leaves. The willows produce lots of rooting hormone, especially in the spring, and they will send out roots quickly. It's a nice way to propagate both hostas and willows. I have gold barked curly willows, but any willow will work.

I had some extra pieces left from when I divided one of my hostas a few weeks ago. The pieces were more than just leaves. I stuck them in water hoping they would root and they never did. I finally got tired of it and tossed them. I do tend to lack patience at times.

Interesting about the willow. I have a curly willow. It is always dropping small branches and twigs. Can you give me more information?

Fresh twigs or dead? I have a lot more dead than fresh, LOL. We had a big storm yesterday so I can go out and collect.

Does this work for rooting anything? I am trying to root the tips of my Chicago Hardy fig I cut off 2 weeks ago, plus plan to take loads of coleus cuttings today. Too wet to plant anything.

Needs to be fresh. Curly willow does shed some in the spring, mainly due to killing temperatures and wind desication in the winter--it is hardy, but will lose the ends of some branches. Siting it in a spot that doesn't get wind in the winter will help, but you should expect to trim off some dead ends every spring. It should work for rooting just about anything, it produces large amounts of indolebutyric acid in the tips of the branches in the spring. Just putting some cuttings in a bucket of water will work, but if you are concerned that you need more, take a hammer to a few twigs and crush them, which will release even more of the rooting hormone. Many commercial rooting hormone products are nothing more than idolebutyric acid in a powdered form.