Took a nice 30 minutes this morning (it’s perfect weather for gardening right now) to dig up and divide some plants for today’s garden exchange.
If you’re not used to dividing perennials, it’s really simple:
• I just dig around the root ball in a circle, and when I can, lever it out (a spearhead spade is my favorite tool for this, but you can use a regular spade too)
• then divide it up — with irises, you can usually just break them apart with your gloved hands, making sure to get some of iris corm (the root-like part) with each division. With the hellebores and hostas, I usually just use the spearhead spade to divide them into chunks, but you can also use a garden knife, I hear (haven’t tried that yet)
• replant one of them in the original hole, and then plant the others elsewhere, or bring them to the perennial exchange to get yourself some variety. Anything you plant, be sure to water in well.
That’s it! Simple! (Any other tips for dividing? Would love to hear them!)
I’m bringing several divisions from a purple single hellebore, several divisions from a short blue-purple early iris (bloomed a few weeks ago), two divisions of guacamole hosta, one division of a medium-size blue-green hosta, and one division of an adorable small green-white hosta.
Oh, and a bunch of Spanish bluebells — just replant and water, and they should come back next spring in early May.
Perennial exchange today, 11-3 (also tools, seeds and seedlings (I’m bringing a huge bin of two-year-old seeds to rummage through, that I never got around to planting), etc.
Details here: https://www.facebook.com/events/596216723489775
Hope to see lots of you there!
