Bare-root hostas: what arrives and how to plant it

If you have only ever bought hostas in pots, a box of bare-root divisions can come as a surprise: no leaves, no soil, just a knot of buds and roots. That is how hostas are traditionally traded in spring, and it is a very good way to start them. Here is what you get, how to tell it is healthy, and how to plant it so it grows away quickly.

What exactly is a bare-root hosta?

A division: part of a mature plant, grown in a nursery field, dug up and cut into pieces. The RHS describes bare-root plants in general as lifted while dormant and sold with little or no soil. Each hosta division has three parts:

• The crown, the short, firm base where roots and shoots meet. The Hosta Helper, an online guide backed by the American Hosta Society, likens it to a dense, potato-like mass.
• One or more buds, also called eyes, on top of the crown. Each one grows into a shoot and then a cluster of leaves.
• The roots, a bundle of pale, fleshy roots below the crown.

The plants are dormant or just waking up, which is why they travel well without soil and root quickly once planted. Bare-root divisions are also lighter and more sustainable to send than potted plants. Every pack we ship contains two plants of the same variety.

Is a hosta a bulb?

No, although many people search for hosta bulbs. The American Hosta Society describes hostas as herbaceous perennials: the leaves die back in autumn and new ones grow from the same crown each spring. The Hosta Helper compares the crown to a potato but stresses that it is not a tuber: buds form on top and roots below. Some species and varieties also spread by rhizomes, short underground stems that creep outwards from the clump.

For planting, that means one thing: treat a division like any other perennial, not like a tulip. The crown goes at soil level with the roots spread out below it, never deep down.

What are hosta eyes, and how many should a division have?

An eye is a bud on the crown, the point from which a shoot grows; Walters Gardens, a large wholesale grower in the United States, calls them growing points. Professional growers grade divisions by their eyes. Walters' own range includes hosta divisions with one eye and with one to three, cut from field-grown clumps two years old and held in cold storage until they ship.

So one firm eye is a normal, healthy start. Every division we send has at least one firm, visible bud, and many have more; miniatures naturally make smaller divisions than giants. Each eye grows its own shoot, so a division with several eyes simply makes more shoots in its first spring.

When you divide a clump of your own, aim higher: Walters suggests at least three eyes per piece and Iowa State University two or three shoots. Our guide to dividing hostas shows how to cut a clump.

What should a healthy division look like?

• Firm, heavy roots. Iowa State describes healthy bare roots as firm and heavy, neither dried out nor brittle.
• Firm buds, at least one of them clearly visible.
• A firm crown that does not give when you press it.
• Damp packing. According to Iowa State, the material around the roots should be moist, neither soggy nor dry.

Iowa State lists the warning signs too: soft roots, a smell of rot, mould, many broken roots and frost damage. A light, fluffy coating on the surface is a different matter. Walters Gardens explains that the humid air of cold storage can leave such mould behind, that it does no harm, and that it usually disappears quickly in fresh air or wipes off.

Size varies with the variety. A piece of a miniature or small hosta may fit in the palm of your hand, while a division of one of our large and giant hostas is much bigger. A small division is not a weak one: it grows into a full plant just the same.

Every plant is checked for healthy roots and at least one firm bud before it leaves us, and plants showing rot or damage are not sent. If a plant arrives damaged or is the wrong variety, report it within 48 hours of delivery with a photo; our sizes and quality page explains the growing guarantee.

What to do on the day your hostas arrive

1. Open the box straight away. Bare roots should not sit in a closed box in a warm room.
2. Check each plant and its label. Every division carries its variety name.
3. Give the roots a drink. Stand them in water for 1–2 hours before planting.
4. Plant the same day if you can. If not, see below.

How to plant a bare-root hosta

1. Choose a shady or half-shaded spot with rich, crumbly soil that holds moisture without getting waterlogged.
2. Dig a generous hole, roughly twice as wide as the roots spread out.
3. Heap a little soil into a mound in the middle and spread the roots over it.
4. Set the crown with its buds pointing up, no lower than 2–3 cm beneath the surface.
5. Fill in, firm lightly with your hands and water thoroughly.

As a rule of thumb, small varieties need roughly 30 cm of space each, medium ones 50 cm and large ones 75–100 cm. Our planting and care guide has the details, and our guide to growing hostas in pots explains how to pot up a division instead.

How deep should a bare-root hosta go?

Sources word it differently, but they agree on the essentials: the crown belongs at the surface or just under it.

We keep to the shallow end of that range. Iowa State's 2.5–5 cm is a limit, not a target, and a crown near the surface means the buds never have far to push through.

Can't plant straight away?

A short wait does no harm if you store the plants well: cool, frost-free and out of the sun, with the roots slightly moist, and planted within a few days. Iowa State suggests a place at about 4 °C, such as a fridge, an unheated garage or a cellar, with the packing kept as damp as a wrung-out sponge.

How long is too long? Purdue University allows about a week for bare-root plants in general, perhaps a little more; for a longer wait, it suggests heeling them in, which means planting them temporarily in a trench. The RHS offers another stopgap: stand the roots in a bucket of moist compost somewhere frost-free.

What happens after planting?

For the first few weeks, seemingly nothing. A division starts with buds only, and the roots get going before anything shows above ground. Shoots usually appear within a few weeks, later in a cold spring. Keep the soil moist but not wet, and watch for slugs as soon as the shoots are up.

Expect a modest first summer from young plants of Hadspen Blue or Sagae: a division spends its first season on roots as much as on leaves, and fills out into a proper clump from its second or third year. Our guide to your hosta's first year explains what is normal and when to worry.

Bare-root or potted hostas?

For a hosta that will stay in your garden for many years, the starting form matters far less than the right spot and a good first season. Every variety in our full hosta range is sent bare-root, from Minuteman, a small to medium hosta for path edges, borders and pots, to giants such as Sagae. Our guide on when to plant hostas explains why bare-root divisions belong to spring.

Common mistakes

• Leaving the box closed for days in a warm hallway.
• Planting the crown deep, like a bulb.
• Letting the roots dry out before planting or in the first weeks after.
• Storing divisions in a warm room instead of somewhere cool and frost-free.
• Throwing away a healthy division because of a little surface mould from cold storage.

In short

• Open the box on arrival and check each division.
• Give the roots 1–2 hours in water before planting.
• Plant the crown level with the soil or up to 2–3 cm below, buds up.
• If you have to wait, keep the plants cool and frost-free and plant within a few days.
• Keep the soil moist and give the shoots a few weeks to appear.