i doubt the ground will thaw... my concern.. would be cut tissue.. thawing in spring ... and rotting in ice cold thawed soil ... before active growth could begin ... i made some big mistakes with such with too early mail order many moon ago .... if it could be done.. without cutting roots.. like on the tiny ones ... it might work.. might even keep them in the veg crisper in the fridge ... lots of theory.. but i would NOT bother ... in this season ... as i have NO experience in such.. besides.. its your prized mousers... do you really want to experiment on those??? ken

just wanted to pipe in to play devil's advocate and say: keep in mind that almost all hostas look pretty lousy in the fall. so if you're basing your decision to move them only on what you saw when you moved into the house, you might be pleasantly surprised when they come up now and look fine all season. (that, coming from a homeowner who recently realized she was moving all her plants back to the original locations she'd found them in 13 years ago when she bought her house.....)

Katie Q is pretty big - maybe 2 1/2 -3' wide. Cascades is small - about a year and a half old. Maybe a couple of others that would be in between. I guess our ground will eventually freeze - but I've planted things well into December and the ground wasn't frozen. I guess it could depend on snow cover which is very variable here. I'm not dividing. I guess I should worry about heave, but I haven't found it with any of my normal sized hostas. I have on occasion found it with minis that are planted in old steps that have become "planters." I'm thinking that they are more exposed to freeze/thaw cycles than the ground. Also they are my "nursery" for younger/smaller plants, and the soil isn't that deep. I keep an eye on them, especially in the spring and some have come out of the ground a bit. I have just planted them back in the ground or covered more of their roots with soil and they've been fine. The hostas I want to move will not go into those "planters." I should add that we have lots of oak leaves and are planning to shred them and cover the beds, especially those with newer plantings. I also just bought a hay bale that I was going to use on some areas like the fall planted daylily beds. I could get more for the hostas.

Agree on noway the hosta is doing anything negative to bulbs. I do a lot of dividing and moving in September. August is too hot and dry, as a rule, in my world. As long as you move/divide them 6 weeks before hard freeze they will be fine. I was doing this more back when that guy Ken gave reference to, originally posted his tutorial. It never fails. The only new consideration I might add, that type of host is a fast grower. What you divide this season you will be repeating. What I had fun doing when I began my hosta journey and what I care to do now are not the same. You might want to consider finding a hosta that when fully mature, won't look crowded to you. (another thing I gleaned from the a fore mentioned guys teachings)