DIGGING BOUND PERENNIALS

Evening Star, Issue 21784, 28 July 1934, Page 23

DIGGING BOUND PERENNIALS

During digging operations it is a great temptation to many gardeners to reduce the size of clumps of herbaceous perennials by chopping off portion of the outside of the clumps, particularly of such things as phlox, cannas. heleniunis, and Michaelmas daisies, arid throwing away these trimraed-off pieces (says the ‘'Taranaki Herald’). This is fatal to the welfare of the plants. It is the outside portions of the plants that should be saved. The middle parts have outlived their usefulness, .and if there is any discarding to do these are the parts that should be thrown away. The correct tiling to do is to lift the plants from the ground bodily, ancj to divide the clumps cither by pulling them apart with the hands or by driving inio' them two garden forks and wrenching these apart. In this way no roots are destroyed, as tjiey invariably are if the usual practice of chopping the clumps into portions wjtli the spade or cutting them Up with a knife is. adopted. Manure the ground before replanting, and do not slavishly follow your original planting; practise a little rearrangement. This riot only ensures a change for the summer to come,, but gives you a chance to correct some of the mistakes you have inade in the. way of placing tall growers too near the front Of the border and of placing the dwartor sorts too far back, and at the same tiro* provides a change of soil for the plants themselves. This ideal Way, of course, is to bavfe the tall plants mostly at the back, but with at least a few towards the front ih order to break that monotonous look too strict formality is apt to emphasise.