I agree that one can divide hostas anytime. however for me the best times are spring when it's dormant or fall when it's going dormant. For this time of the year, you need to water the plants well before division. Do it during an overcast sky. It's been rainy in Toronto this past week - that is the kind of weather that suitable for divisions or transplanting. Tomorrow however is going to be too hot. You can minimize the damange if you just wish to reduce the size of the plant but not uproot the entire plant. I would use a knife and cut the outer plants from the mother plant. And then take a trowel or shovel to remove the plant from the rest. The mother plant will remain.

I think you are both right. Division does of course delay maturity of the old clump and the new clump, but in comparison to starting a hosta from seed, it seems like it might be quicker. I am not surprised that you had the same experience with seed production, Pieter. I have only the one Guacamole, which I love the fragrant large blooms by the way, but in 5 years have not had one seed pod. Now I will not look for them since the seed don't seem viable anyway. I suppose they did something to produce the larger blossoms that interfered with it's ability to produce a seed. I have other hosta that produce a ton of seed. Last winter was the first time I tried growing hosta from seed. It's kind of fun to see how many little hostas grow so dependably with the winter sowing method, but not sure I have the patience to wait for a great specimen. (g)

Call or send an e-mail to Jeff Miller, owner of Land of the Giants hosta farm. He doesn't have them in his online catalog, but he may have a few available, nonetheless. I spoke with him about Continental Divide last year. Unfortunately, coming out of tissue culture production, many have been poor growers.

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.