How to Separate Day Lilies

Day lilies are extremely hardy, low maintenance flowers that thrive even in partial sun and poor soil---and still manage to produce copious blooms throughout the summer. Day lilies don't require much work, but they do benefit from being divided every few years, which gives them more room to spread out and refreshes the root ball.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Day lilies
• Garden fork
• Shovel
• Knife
• Mulch

1. Loosen the soil around your day lilies with a garden fork. Try to avoid damaging the day lily roots, which extend 6 to 12 inches beyond the perimeter of the leaves.

2. Using a garden fork or shovel, lift the root ball out of the ground.

3. Gently brush away some of the soil with your fingers and examine the day lily root ball. There should be an area in the middle that looks weak or thin. Use this as your guide for separating the clump.

4. Cut the root ball in half with a sharp knife. You may also pry it apart with a garden fork. If the root ball is very large, you may make several divisions. If you like, you can even use your fingers to separate individual plants. Make sure that each division has a fan of leaves and an attached cluster of roots.

5. Replant the newly separated day lilies by digging a hole for each division and burying it at the same depth it was growing before. If you are planting individual day lilies, without any soil attached to the root ball, build a small mound inside the planting hole and spread out the roots over the mound.

6. Cover the soil around your replanted day lilies with mulch and water well.

Tips & Warnings

• The best time to separate day lilies is in late summer or early fall, after the flowers have finished blooming. Divide your day lilies several weeks before the predicted frost, so that the plants will have a chance to establish themselves. You can also divide day lilies in the early spring, when the leaves are just starting to come up.
• If you cannot replant your day lilies right away, place them in a large pot of soil and keep them out of direct sunlight. It's best to replant your day lilies within a week or two of dividing them.

References

• Dividing Daylilies
• How to Divide Daylilies