By
eHow Home & Garden Editor
Difficulty: Moderately Easy
Step1
Plan to divide your bleeding hearts in the early autumn, as they are spring-blooming perennials. In most regions of the northern hemisphere, September usually provides ideal weather conditions.
Step2
Give your bleeding hearts a healthy drink of water on the days leading up to your planned division. Thoroughly watering perennials prior to division is essential to ensure that the plants have enough nutrients stored to make a healthy transition.
Step3
Prepare holes for your divided plants. Dig down to a depth of 6 to 8 inches, allowing ample room on all sides for the new plants to grow.
Step4
Prune the stems of the plant, and trim any excess flowering before you lift out the parent plant. The stem should be clean to at least 6 inches in height.
Step5
Dig deep into the ground on all sides of the bleeding heart, beginning from a radius at least 4 to 6 inches away from the plant. Thus, you should end up digging a deep circle around the plant that is 10 to 12 inches in diameter.
Step6
Pry beneath the roots of the plant's stem and gently lift it out of the ground.
Step7
Cut the parent plant's stems into clumps about 4 to 6 inches in diameter. Expect to be able to divide a single bleeding heart plant into at least three new plants, though this will vary depending on the size the parent plant reached before division. Bleeding hearts can grow to become quite large, in which case a half-dozen divisions or more might be made from its stem.
Step8
Plant the divided stems into the holes you prepared earlier, at the same depth that the stem of the parent plant was at when you dug it up and removed it. Fill in the hole with soil.
Step9
Water your newly divided bleeding hearts plants well in the days and weeks after you plant them. All divided plants should grow at roughly the same rate.
