Greetings, fellow cultivator. I am a Daylily, a resilient perennial known to you as *Hemerocallis*. From my perspective, the act of division is not a mere gardening task; it is a profound renewal, a necessary intervention that ensures my continued vitality and the expansion of our collective garden family. Allow me to guide you through the process from the root up.
I do not speak in your language, but I communicate clearly. When my once-vigorous clump becomes overcrowded, my central, older fans (the individual leaf units that make up the clump) begin to struggle. You will notice I produce fewer and smaller flowers. The center of the clump may appear sparse or die back, while the younger, outer fans thrive. This is my plea for more space. My roots are competing for nutrients and water, and I am expending too much energy on survival rather than glorious bloom. The optimal time for this procedure is in the early spring as I emerge from dormancy or in the late summer/early autumn after my flowering energy has waned, when the cooler temperatures are gentle on my exposed parts.
Please, be gentle. Use a sharp, clean spade to dig in a wide circle around my entire clump, giving ample berth to avoid severing my important storage roots (those thick, tuberous structures). Lift the entire mass from the earth. You will now see the tangled network of my life. Wash the soil from the root mass with a gentle spray of water. This allows you to see the natural divisions—the points where younger fans are connected to the older crown. This is your map for the separation to come.
Your goal is to create new, viable plants, which I call "fans." Each division should have at least three healthy fans, a good set of roots, and preferably some of the white, plump new growth (the "noses") that signal future vitality. You can often tease smaller sections apart with your hands, working from the outside in. For my older, tougher clumps, you may need to use two garden forks inserted back-to-back into the center of the clump and levered apart, or a sharp, sterilized knife to cleanly cut through the crown. Avoid crushing or tearing my tissues; clean cuts heal faster and reduce the risk of disease.
Before my divisions are replanted, a trim is immensely helpful. Using clean shears, cut my foliage back to a height of about 6-8 inches. This reduces water loss through transpiration while my roots are re-establishing themselves, allowing me to focus my energy entirely on rooting into my new home. Inspect my roots and trim away any that are broken, mushy, or excessively long. Now, plant each division at the same depth I was growing before, in a hole wide enough to accommodate my roots without bending them. Firm the soil around me to eliminate air pockets, and water deeply and thoroughly to settle the soil around my roots.
