let me rephrase your title .... what are you performing under??? maples???

if not.. then how dark is it in there???? hosta are only shade tolerant.. and do rather poorly in dark shade ... how high is your canopy?

ken

PS: welcome....

And how much water do you put on every other day? Do you mulch? With what? Do you "loosen the soil" around each plant in the spring? What is under the ground where they are planted?
Linda C

In one Garden they are under Oak Trees the Canopy is at least 20 feet high. In the second garden they are at the edge of a Maple tree The canopy is at least 15 feet high. They receive morning sun. I hand water enough to form small puddles on the ground. I do not use mulch in order to prevent slug damage. When I orginally planted the gardens 5+ years ago I dug down about 8 inches and augmented the soil with good top soil. There are tree roots runing through the gardens. I have not had this problem in prior years. I did not loosen the soil in the spring.

Hi genio. I have the same problem with my 'Blue Angel', its about a foot smaller overall than it was last year, and I've done nothing different (and no, no maples). All the others around it are the size they were last year.

Donna

Between the no mulch allowing evaporation and the tree roots, your hosta are dying of hunger and thirst.
Pile on the alfalfa pellets, cover with wood or bark mulch and set the hose for about 4 houra and forget it.
In another month add more alfalfa and water well....very well ( not by hand...no one has that kind of patience to water enough) every week.....and keep watering until frost....and you will see a huge difference.
And Slug-go or Escar-go are good safe slug baits.
Linda C

I dug up a Sagae near the Maple tree. The soil was in good condition there wasn't any competition with the Maple tree's roots. The moisture content while not dry was not as damp as I expected. I will increase my watering. The one thing that concerns me was the root system of the Hosta was not as extensive as I expected. What can I do to increase the root system of the Hosta.

I don't remember if we had a drought after I stopped watering last year. In the spring we had hot days followed by frost. But wouldn't these conditions effect all my Hostas not just select Hostas. I must have over fifty Hostas of different varieties located in different gardens. Not all of my Hostas are affected. None of the large Hostas have grown as large as I expected. (The Sagae are in the worst shape) Most of the medium size Hostas are close to their expected sizes. The small and mini's are the correct sizes.

Water, water, water. The big guys need more water.

Sagae is a notoriously slow one to get established, but the roots, if properly trained, will go down deeply to get moisture. But you have to water so that it gets down really deep.

Also, the big guys like to be planted deeper. Sagae can easily have its crown 3" below the soil and it will grow much better.

I almost killed a Montana by planting it too deep....I very strongly disagree that big hosta can stand to be planted deeper. I also had a Krossa Regal that was too deep ( my son divided some hosta so he could have the divisions) and it put up new eyes around the area that was too deep and the center part got small and puny...3 1/2 years later all is well.
But I agree.....water water and more water!
Linda C

Chris, does planting Sagae deeper help keep it dormant longer? That would be a good thing in my book.

Genieo,

Most of my hosta are smaller this year than last year. I know alot of them were stunted by the late freeze.

I am relatively new to growing hosta but I do have extensive amount of perennial plants in my shady garden.
My theory would be that your soil is too poor and compacted for hosta to have good root system and big hostas feel it first as they need more nutrition for their bigger roots than small ones. Sprinkling fertilizer around flower bed couple of times a year does almost nothing but brings up salt content in your soil.
To have big lush plants in my garden I start with the soil. All my flower beds are raised. I garden under highly pruned huge oaks and raising beds does matter but as long as you do not go over 4-6 inches mature trees in majority of cases will not suffer from it. I try to add compost, my own and from and from landfield, horse manure etc. at least every spring as much as I can get my hands on.
My suggestion would be to do right thing and rework your soil in your beds completely. Dig out plants, pot them up and bring in as much organic matter into your beds as you could. Dig it in as deep as you could. If you can not do beds completely divide it in parts and rework it by areas.
Just my two cents.