Divide to fill the garden
Splitting your favourite plants provides lots more for free
PERENNIALS don’t come cheap, with garden centres often charging more than £10 for a decent-sized plant. Smaller plants are cheaper, but these may take a few years to establish and perform as well as you’d like, so the best way of filling your garden with reliable repeat colour is to divide existing favourite plants.
It is an easy and satisfying task, made all the more delightful by the fact that the end result should far outweigh the cost – which, basically, comes in at nothing! Dividing is also beneficial to the parent plant, keeping it compact, reviving it and giving you the chance to remove old, unsightly woody growth.
To split a plant, start by lifting it – dig just wide of the roots to avoid damaging them and keep some protective soil around them. Place the plant on a board or plastic sack and divvy it up, using either two garden forks back-to-back to lever the roots apart, or by cutting through the rootball with a spade, or even, when the roots are in a tough mat, sawing through them.
Make sure each division has healthy roots and top growth, and replant them as soon as possible at the same depth as the parent plant was growing beforehand. Water well and don’t worry if the divisions seem to wilt after replanting, as they will soon perk up again. Dividing plants now, when the soil is still warm after the summer and damp with autumn rains, means the new plants have time to bed in, get established and develop healthy new roots before they go dormant for winter.