6 easy steps to dividing plants

When handled properly, divided plants quickly settle in and make new growth. Here are six steps to dividing plants to get more flowers.

Perennials grow into bushy clumps that need occasional thinning and separation.

• This is a task mainly for spring, but you can divide plants in fall if you live where winters are mild.
• Perennials can best withstand some handling and breakage when their strong spring growth is ready to begin.

Is the crowded clump made up of many plants, or crowns, with individual root systems?

• If so, your job is to dig, then pull or cut the individual plants free from the greater mass.
• Discard old, woody crowns or those that lose their roots as you divide the clumps.

Small divisions often have few roots, so they can't tolerate stress from dry conditions.

• Keep divided plants in a shady spot or cover them with a damp cloth.
• Replant them into a new bed or into containers of moist soil as quickly as possible.

You don't have to dig up a big clump of daylilies in order to get a few new plants.

• Instead, take a division or two from the outside of the clump by cutting straight down through the roots.
• This is a great way to share plants with friends without disturbing the parent clump.

If you end up with more plants than you can use, give them to your friends, offer them to neighbours or donate them to plant sales.

Recruit great divisions by letting the plants know your plans ahead of time.

• Place a bucketful of compost over the base of the plant from which you plan to take a division.
• After a couple of weeks, the stems beneath the compost may have already begun to grow roots, which will help supplement the below-ground roots that will be lost as the plants are dug and moved.

This method works especially well with ground cover plants, such as pachysandra and lamb's ear.

• Dig crowded clumps when the bulbs are dormant — usually late summer or early fall.

Many bulbs form smaller offspring — tiny versions of themselves called bulblets.

• With narcissus and tulips, break off the bulblets by hand and replant them in a nursery bed. They will grow to blooming size in two to three years.

• When you're through doing dirty, stinky work, such as dividing up plants, wash your hands with toothpaste and they'll smell great.

The ingredients in toothpaste that deodorize your mouth will work on your hands as well.