One of the best ways to keep your daylilies healthy, strong and blooming big is to regularly split them – and there is no better time to divide daylilies than right before spring arrives!
Not only is it easy to do, you’ll be amazed at just how many free new plants it can create for your landscape. But even better, it will help to recharge all of your daylilies and have them ready to bloom brighter and bigger than ever!
It’s hard to find a more low-maintenance perennial than a daylily. For starters, the plant is amazingly drought resistant. It also happens to be tolerant of almost any soil and climate condition, allowing it to grow nearly anywhere.
Perhaps what really makes the daylily plant such a great choice for flowerbeds is just how fast it grows. With all of that speedy growth, in just a few years time, a single plant can quadruple in size. And when it does, its blooming cycles can begin to suffer. Which is exactly why regular dividing is need to keep them strong and robust.
Why & How To Divide Daylilies Before Spring
Dividing daylilies every three to five years is an excellent way to keep the plant’s foliage in check. It also helps this perennial maintain a strong flush of blooms each and every growing season.
If allowed to grow too large, the roots and foliage begin to grow too thick. Because of this, daylilies start to have issues being able to absorb the nutrients and moisture they need to produce strong foliage and bloom sets.
The result is an overgrown plant with foliage that is less than impressive. Even worse, the plant will begin to produce fewer and fewer blooms with each passing year. But the good news? Dividing is a quick and easy cure to solve the problem. And late winter or very early spring happens to be the perfect time to do it!
Although you can divide daylilies at any point of the growing season without worry of killing the plant, late winter / early spring dividing presents several big advantages over summer and fall efforts.
Dividing Early
You can divide daylilies before spring anytime the soil can be worked. Neither a frost or even a hard freeze will harm the plants. As long as the soil is loose to dig and transplant, you are good to go. This allows you plenty of time to get the plants in before the growing season starts!
Spring dividing also helps you fill in open bed spaces before the growing season is in full swing. That can help cut down on future weeds, and even better, having to spend so much time, energy and cost on mulch! See our article: How To Keep Your Flowerbeds Weed Free With Less Work!
If you did not clear the spent foliage from plants in late fall, begin by removing it first. Although the decaying material can be cut off, in most cases, you should be able to pull it away from the base simply by tugging up lightly on the foliage.
Quite often, when you remove the spent foliage, you will see new green growth appearing at the base. Do not panic or worry about harming the plant, even if it is cold. Daylilies are one of the first perennials to begin growing in early spring, and their base will green up with the slightest of warming trends.
Even though this occurs, they will once again go dormant again with a freeze or hard frost. Eventually, when the soil warms and stays warm, new growth will shoot up for good.
Digging Up & Dividing Your Daylilies Before Spring
Once the foliage is cleared and the base of the plant is exposed, you are ready to start dividing. Begin by loosening the soil with a shovel a few inches behind the outer edge of the shoots extending out from the crown.
Don’t panic if you happen to sever a shoot or two in the process. Daylilies are extremely hardy and tough to kill. Slicing into a few side shoots or roots will not harm them in the least. Next, using the shovel, dig down behind and pop the daylily out of the soil.
If you happen to be dealing with an extremely large and overgrown plant, you may need to cut the plant out in sections. Plants that have been in the ground for five or more years tend to develop extensive roots, and sectioning them off at this point will make the task much easier.
Once your plant (or plant sections) are out of the soil, it’s time to divide them into new transplants. The easiest way to do this is to first flip the plant over to expose the root cluster.
Slicing the roots is an easier proposition than cutting down through the top growth. It not only divides better, it also allows you to keep them in proportionate sizes with ease. You can use a shovel to divide. We like to use a garden knife for this as it makes cutting equal sections a breeze! Affiliate Link: Hori Hori Garden Knife For Weeding, Planting & Digging.
Sizing & Cutting Daylilies When Dividing Before Spring
The size of the new cutting directly determines the first year size of the new plant. In general, dividing new plants into 3″ x 3″ root sections will create a typical 1/2 gallon plant that will be able to grow another 3 to 5 years without issue.
It is always best to transplant new cuttings as soon as you divide. Although they can survive wrapped up for a few days, getting them back into the ground immediately will help them begin to re-root as fast as possible.
To transplant divisions, begin by digging a hole slightly deeper and wider than your cutting. Next, put a bit of loose soil and compost in the bottom of the hole. This will help the new cutting to more easily send out its roots into the soil. Daylilies don’t require a great deal of additional soil power, but compost really helps them take off fast.
Be sure the top of the plant’s soil line is level with the existing soil line. Next, fill in the edges of the hole with soil and lightly press down around the plant to help set the roots. If the soil happens to be extremely dry, you can water it. But in most cases, it simply isn’t necessary, especially in the spring.
The plant will quickly begin to grow from the roots in the coming weeks, and in nearly all cases will produce blooms the same year. Just another reason digging up, dividing and transplanting daylilies before spring works like a charm!
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