First, checking supplies.
Garden knife, gloves, extra pots, water, and soil. I wish I had rooting hormone, but I did not think about that until later when the accident happened. I had 1/3 bag of soil on my left and an extra bag in the shed with extra pots. I needed the extra bag of soil and 2 extra pots.

Wow.

It took me nearly 10 minutes to wrest this plant from the pot. It was seriously root-bound. I banged on the outer sides of the pot all around multiple times and shook loosened soil out. I nearly cut the plastic pot off of the plant. This was hard work, but not the hardest part.

Teasing roots loose

This plant was solidly root bound. Often, the center underside is less root-bound, which was the case here, too. However, there was extensive living (hard!) crown in the center below the soil surface. I used my fingers and worked the roots free from the sides and bottom.

For a less root-bound plant, I would have proceeded to the next step with garden hose with a strong sprayer. That was obviously not going to work here. There was not much soil left, and the root ball was matted and solid internally.

OMG, the next step was exhausting, manual labor. I shook the soil from the root ball. I used my fingers and thumbs to feel inside the root ball for the separate eyes and easiest places to divide. I pulled and wiggled the divisions loose, taking care to grasp above and below the crown of the eyes without breaking the stems as I maintained traction outward in both directions. Rinse and repeat. I had to cut a couple sections loose with the gardening knife.

I could not photograph the progress, and I may have been swearing for some of it. The dog ran off with one of the June Fever divisions, but I rescued it from her before she had a chance to savage it. She is sneaky and has stolen bareroot hostas from me in the past.

Here are the green eyes. The one I am holding in my left hand is the sad accident. It is the largest eye, which I avulsed from the bulk of its roots. Sorry for the poorly composed photo with busy roots and smaller eyes on the ground in the background, but only the only roots this big eye has are the couple spindly 1-2 inch ones just visible from the base of the eye. I checked the shed and discovered that I did not have any root hormone. I may have sworn some more at this point, but kept going. Hostas are super-tough. If there is crown tissue with the leaves, especially if a little bit of root attached to the crown tissue, the eye should survive. We shall see.

The June Fever eyes. See how 1 year later, HALF of the plant was June Fever and the other half was all-green!

This June Fever set of eyes has some of the central crown of the plant and baby eyes. This may throw more all-green eyes, or be June Fever. Again, time will tell.

Here is the finished product:

The green eyes are potted on the left, and the June Fevers on the right. As you can see, I would have lost the June Fever this year or next due to the robust growth of the green eyes. The front green pot is a single strong eye, and the back green pot is the avulsed largest eye and a smaller eye that that has a ridiculously big root system. I am hoping that the big eye without roots takes a hint from the little guy with lots of roots in the same pot.

The June Fevers are on the left.

Dividing hostas can be hard work. I do not do it for fun or as a matter of course, as it is not necessary for the plant. Over time, the center of a hosta will die back and leave a ring of healthy eyes around it. This ring of eyes opens up to a healthy plant without holes or gaps. I divided this June Fever to save the original June Fever from the all-green reversion or sport that was destined to take over the whole pot.

Now, I have my June Fever back and a new plant: Green Devil.

The end.

That's a lot of work for what appeared to be a small plant. We had enormous problems with a very large Guacamole in our front bed. It was literally being taken over by all green leaves. We also had tree roots to contend with. We didn't bother to save the all green leaves since we had to hack away so much to salvage the remains. We have a spade/shovel called the Assassin that works on tree roots but only if you can get it positioned properly. Like your situation, the all green parts had tons of roots and they were literally choking the plant. Green Devil is an apt name for your leaves. I also use a tool which is a type of knife that I got from A M Leonard to hack through root bound plants in a container, it literally slices through roots if enough pressure is applied. I guess we were lucky not to have a "gardening dog" since that makes everything much harder. What does your dog do with the plant? Toss it around or does the dog actually rip it apart? just asking since none of our dogs ever gardened with us. they would cry to go outside but as soon as we got them situated near us they would then decide to go inside.

hmm.. maybe i missed it.. im not going back .. but where was the part where you threw it on the driveway and cussed at it for a bit ...???

bruce.. grhs .... would have probably have told you to just keep beating it on a tree .. until it fell apart ... as i would have done.. after he told me his secret method ...

but think about this.. how much time and effort you put into .. for it to fall apart the wrong way anyway ...

anyway.. absolutely GREAT TUTORIAL... and i appreciate all the pix and posting ... my big problem back in the day ... was using a camera that could not handle all the dirt ...

thx ..

ken

Ken, thanks! You are right about the lack of driveway, but I did throw it on the patio slate AND the dog ran off with one of the clumps.

Miles, the dog actually eats the entire plant. She does not do this for the plants in the ground or potted, but for bareroot plants on the ground/patio. RE the Green Devil, it is about 4 times the size (single leaf area and plant) to my actual Devon Green. Aside from large size and improved vigor, it is identical to Devon Green (a nice plant). So, no garden assassin for this one. Other all greens are often for the chop.

Utog, I did this two years ago with a good sized June that was reverting to Halcyon. I documented it with pictures as well after watching a tutorial by Ken from some 11-12 years ago. It was hard work, but luckily my garden helper, Bert was there to help me! Good job!

debra

A successful separation of conjoined hosta and no sliced fingers. Looks like the Green Devil will be a super big hosta and will be a pretty addition to your wonderful garden.

As expected, the Green Devil eye without roots is looking wilted several hours later. Having seen this before, I can tell that this is not bad. I feel pretty optimistic that the entire operation was a success.

A great tutorial! Your labour of love paid off. The eyes you separated are lustrous and beautiful. I, too, would have saved them.

The wilting eye is not getting any water understandably due to lack of roots and will very likely eventually expire in just soil/potting mix. If it was mine I would place it in a jar of water for about 7-10 days until it roots. (It will revive itself very quickly and become turgid again.) Change the water every couple of days to keep it fresh. I have had repeated success using this method to save a few “accidentally rootless” hostas...Blue Angel, Orange Marmalade, etc. I do have pics somewhere.

I hope you try this. :)

Wanted to improve root system

Hope this is enough encouragement...:)

but I did throw it on the patio slate AND the dog ran off with one of the clumps.

==>>> good enough.. and if the rest of the plant was paying attention.. that should have generated enough fear for them to understand whos in charge... lol .. though im not sure if it you or the dog .. lol

ken

Thanks, Josephine! I will try that!

My June Fever did that a few years ago too. The all green eye that I separated is a much more vigorous plant with leaves larger and thicker than Devon Green, so I don't think it is a

reversion" either. It was Chris Wilson (former Hallson Gardens Nursery) who explained the mix-up of the registration. June Fever is a sport of Devon Green, not June. But they all are related to Halcyon.

-Babka

Nice pictorial tutorial. I did a little Hosta action myself this weekend. I removed a Luna Moth (actually 5 of them) to make room for new and different things. I thought about dividing, then just threw them in pots on their way to someone (anyone?) else. Thanks for confirming how much work it is. Not to mention the work involved in posting it all here.

steve, someone will be lucky to get that one you posted with so many pips and such nice roots on it. I hope you kept one Luna Moth for yourself.

Ken, definitely the dog.

Final update 1 week after division:

Everything survived. I ended up leaving the Green Devil eye that was missing most of its roots in the pot of soil instead of soaking it in water. Why? The dog! I realized that I had no way to protect the soaking plant from the dog and wildlife outside, and no way to protect it from the cats inside. (Yes, my cats will find and savage any cut flowers or indoor rooting projects. They start with knocking over the vessel of water, and then they kill the helpless plant or flower.) Moving on, I placed the pot with the wilted Green Devil eye very close to a Japanese holly fern and rested the wilted leaves on the fern fronds for support. As you know, stems stop transporting water effectively when they are too bent. As of yesterday, the wilted Green Devil lifted its leaves off of the holly fern. Houston, we have lift off!

Wow, ya learn something new every day.......about the bent leaves—-did not know that.

debra

Excellent documentation of a complicated garden project! Thanks!

They look great! hmm bigger and better than Devon Green . . .

Terrific news! :D

Green Devil on left, Devon Green on right

Now I'm rooting for my June Fever to throw an all green sport.

UTOG, great pictorial tutorial, I go through this with 'Revolution' on a regular basis. What the whole exercise should have made clear to you by now is that you NEED a potting bench, if for no other reason than to keep the animals at bay...

Pieter