Dividing Perennials in Late Summer

Special Tips: Flower particulars: - Iris likes it's tubers to be about an inch below the soil surface, but it's stringy roots planted downward. If it has 5 leaves in the fan, it will bloom the next year, 3 leaves won't. Plant iris in a circle of about 6 with the tubers facing inward. New plants grow out from the shoot end. Destroy any tubers that are soft or rotten as they may been attacked by iris borers. - Daylily: a clump of 3 good shoots with good tubers will bloom the next year. - Hosta (Plantain lily): 3-5 shoots makes a better clump. - Peony will not bloom if it's "eye" (the tip of its new shoot for the next year) is buried more than one inch underground. - Chrysanthemum shoots are healthiest if taken from the outside. The centers of clumps die out as the new shoots grow outwards. When digging try not to cut the roots especially the ones with tubers (like daylilies, peonies, iris and hosta) or fleshy roots (like poppy, balloonflower and bleeding heart). Sometimes it's easier to loosen and pull out a clump with a pitchfork than a spade. But in gardening nothing is black and white though. For really overgrown clumps with heavy matted roots (often hosta and daylilies), one has to actually chop them into chunks, then separate off the broken roots, saving the healthy ones. Hold dug plants in the shade. The shorter the time between digging and replanting, the better the take. If you can't get everything planted right away, throw some dirt on the roots and then water well, creating a slurry of mud. The mud coats and protects the roots as well as the necessary mycorrhizae and other fungi attached to the roots. Before replanting, trim back the overlong damaged roots. New roots usually grow from clean cut ends, so shorter roots produce a more compact root ball, particularly useful if the plant is being propagated in a nursery bed. The vegetable garden makes a perfect propagating bed. Many plants need a year or more to grow on until they are big enough to make a statement in the flower garden. A row of recovering plants, particularly as they begin to bloom again, will beautify the vegetable patch. Lime loving plants need a pH of 6.0 to 8.0 to be happy, so in acid soil, incorporate lime at planting time. Lime works slowly. Some plants that like a higher pH are: astilbe, aster, campanula, calendula, carnation, clematis, columbine, rudbeckia, cranesbill, daylily, foxglove, gaillardia, globeflower, gypsophilia, peony,dianthus (some species), poppy, rose mallow. But bear in mind that many varieties of the same plant species may be more tolerant of a low pH or even prefer a less alkaline soil. A pH of about 6.0 OR 6.5 usually works for most plants. Fertilizing perennials: In cold climates, applying fertilizer, especially nitrogen, late in the season produces soft new growth that will not harden off in time for winter and plants will be more likely to winterkill. The old fashioned common wisdom was to fertilize no later than July. However, with short acting liquid fertilizers, it may be possible to apply some of these a little later in the season. Normally Fall fertilizer is limited to slower acting chemicals like lime and superphosphate, and is applied after all growth has stopped. In early spring, granular fertilizer should be lightly worked in the soil around the plants to encourage good growth. It may be applied again in late spring or early summer. If using a slow release pelletized fertilizer, be sure it will be exhausted by mid-summer.

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