Perennial garden flowers offer a simple and beautiful way to transform your landscape. Just a few varieties can make your yard more colorful, structured, and full of texture. Plus, since perennials come back year after year, there’s less stress around maintenance! Over the course of years, however, you may notice that your perennial plants are starting to look overcrowded and unhealthy. Knowing when it’s time to divide perennials can help you keep your perennial plants happy and healthy for many seasons to come.
What Is Perennial Division?
Dividing perennials means digging up an already-established plant and separating its roots into smaller sections. Each section should contain healthy roots and shoots so it can establish itself on its own. You can replace the main plant with a smaller section and use the extra plants elsewhere in the garden. By dividing your plant you’ve given it more space to grow and this can improve its overall health.
However, not every perennial needs to be divided so often. Some plants can stay in place for many years, while others benefit from division every few seasons. Paying attention to how the plant looks is the best way to know when it is ready.
How to Tell When Perennials Need to Be Divided
The easiest way to spot if your perennials are getting overcrowded is to look at their general health and how they’re growing. If a plant seems weak, dull, leggy, or stretched and droopy, division may help rejuvenate it and get it back to normal.
Additionally, see if the plant’s center is thinning. Many clump-forming perennials grow outward over time. As the outer edges continue to grow, the center of the plant can become bare, woody, or weak. In that case, it may be time to divide the plant.
Also, check the flowers. If there are fewer flowers, or the blooms are smaller than usual, the roots may be too crowded. Even if the plant is technically still growing, it may not be getting adequate water and nutrients to flourish as it competes with surrounding plants for resources.
Finally, see if the plant has outgrown its space. If it’s spreading onto nearby flowers or taking up an entire garden bed, it’s best that you separate them to create more room.
Other signs to check for include:
- Plants require more watering than usual.
- Stems may flop outward.
- New growth emerges only around the clump’s edges.
- Plant is spreading beyond established garden walls or edging.
Why You Should Divide Perennials
One of the main reasons to divide perennials is to give your plants more space to grow. Most perennials like to spread out, which can eventually cause roots to become too crowded. In this scenario, plants start competing for water, oxygen, and nutrients, and that can result in weakened growth.
Diving perennials takes care of this issue. When you spread out the plants into smaller sections, they become less demanding and grow properly. Improved air flow helps reduce diseases that can set in when plants are too moist and shade each other out. Creating space between plants allows them to develop into their best mature form and it makes it easier for you to perform simple tasks like weeding or deadheading.
Dividing perennials improves your garden’s overall look. While a densely packed flower garden may appear lush at first glance, overgrown plants can eventually start to look unkempt and unbalanced.
When is the Best Time to Divide Perennials?
The best time to divide perennials depends on their blooming time. For instance, if the plant blooms in spring, the best time to divide it is around late summer or early fall. Alternatively, if it blooms in the summer or fall, divide it in early spring.
It’s best to divide perennials on a cool, cloudy day when possible. Making divisions is stressful on a plant and high heat and sun exposure can amp up the stress even further.
Make sure your plants have been well-watered in the days prior to dividing them so the roots and foliage are well-hydrated. Once you’re done with the division and replanting, water the plants thoroughly. Keeping the soil evenly moist for a few weeks will help the plants reestablish and encourage fresh growth.
How Often to Divide Perennials
How often you divide a perennial plant will depend on the type of plant, its growth habit, rate of growth, and available garden space. General guidelines for how frequently to divide perennials are:
- 1-3 years for fast-growing plants.
- 3-5 years for medium-growing plants.
- 5-10 years (or more) for slow-growing plants. Note that you may not be able to divide plants that grow from a single, main tap root.
What Can You Do with Extra Plant Divisions?
Naturally, you’re probably wondering what to do with all those extra plants.
First, take a good look at your garden. If there’s a bare spot that needs a refresh, perennials just might be the perfect fit! Also, you could group multiples of an individual plant variety in different areas of your landscape to create a more cohesive look over a large area.
If your garden is already crowded, your extra plants can make great gifts. Give them to your friends and family, neighbors, local garden clubs, or community gardens. Check to see if there are plant swaps in your area where you might also find a new addition for your garden! Plants could be placed in plastic bags and set in a box marked “free plants” on the curb by your house.
If you’re not ready to plant them or give them away, you can hold your plant divisions temporarily in plastic bags, making sure to keep the roots moist and store them out of direct sunlight. But keep in mind – the sooner they’re replanted, the better their chance of establishing properly.
Divide and Thrive
Dividing perennials gives roots more room, reduces competition for water and nutrients, improves airflow, and encourages stronger growth. It is also one of the easiest ways to multiply your favorite plants and make the most of what is already growing in your yard.
To learn more about the specifics of how to divide perennial plants, see our article on Dividing Perennials.
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