the problem... IMHO ... was the dichotomy between the soil.. and the medium ... i lost hundreds of plants in my sand.. when i simply tipped them out of their promix filled pots.. and stuck the wad into the sand.. over the next few years.. many a hosta failed ... because the sand wicked all the moisture out of the peat.. and by august.. it would not accept water.. no matter what i did ... the whole point of potting medium.. is the predictability of water management throughout the WHOLE ... with the two types .. your peat based stuff could be sodden.. while the clay part was bone dry.. or vice versa ... if you didnt do it on replanting.. i would suggest you pull it back out.. and water blast everything off the root mass ... and plant it in one type of medium ... and that way.. you KNOW ... when you water.. that the water is moving thru the whole.. predictably .. i would get a bag of mini chunks or bark fine ... and mix it about two thirds your stuff.. and 1/3 the other ... [i used one gallon pots for said measuring .. tossed it all in a wheelbarrow... and wetted it all down ...] ken Here is a link that might be useful: scroll down to 'pine bark mini nuggets' and look at the pic

If the leaves are droopy, you have a good chance they'll look better toward the end of the season. If the petiole (stem) is droopy, it's probably not going to pop back this season. Ken once explained to me that when the strength of the petiole is compromised, you've weakened the strength of fibers and it's not something that can recover within a year. You may hold out hope that a new flush of leaves later in the season may be a saving grace, but you're probably just going to be lookin' at ugly hosta for the rest of the year. Next year.... different story. As for splitting into too many pieces.... My belief is that if each individual eye was given enough root mass to sustain that eye, then it should do fine. Otherwise, again, you may have to wait till next year to see improvement. Most importantly, do not trim off the green droopy foliage. So long as it's green, it's feeding the roots... for later this year and into next. Don't trim till its brown.

That's a very helpful information! Thank you Jagd51, Paul and Gesila. I saw that hosta in the catalog of Land of Giants and I heard on this forum that they are selling field grown plants. But it's not incredibly expensive there so perhaps it's a small TC. May be contacting Jeff would be the best way to figure out this question. Otherwise, it might be better for me to wait a bit longer for this hosta to become more easily available in a reasonable size.

You guys are SO FUNNY! Paul I LOVED your photoshopped picture!!! Talynnp, thanks for the encouragement and pictures... right now mine is probably 5 times larger than the ones in your pictures, so I should be able to divide it the way you did and still have a good sized clump in this spot. Ken, I am thrilled to hear that you think it is not the sun! I will dig it up (carefully) and do my darndest to remove what hopefully will be fully decomposed big maple roots by now (3 years since the tree was removed) and amend the soil like crazy and replant. At the time I removed the tree, I spent like 2 days hacking at what was left of the roots after the tree removal service ground the stump and had no energy left to do the same underneath the hosta. I put in a small pond where the tree was and the hosta is about three feet from the edge below a low retaining wall. By the way, I have been top dressing it with vermicompost (from my worm farm), decomposed leaves and composted cow manure (the kind you by at Lowes). Is this a good combination to amend with? I will search for Ken's posting on moving large hosta so I can "do it right". Anyway, after seeing the picture of "my" hosta in Pauls picture - I will never be able to look at mine the same way again without laughing!!!! Thanks to all who posted. Betty