Dividing Daylilies – How to Expand Your Garden for Free

Daylilies are the gifts that keep on giving! After years of wasting time and money with annuals, I have resolved to invest in perennials for my foundation plants. Today, let’s talk about dividing daylilies and how to expand your garden for free! The beauty of perennials is that they are a one time purchase, yet they yield years of repeat beauty.  In this post I’ll show you how to divide and transplant daylilies so that you have a jaw dropping garden that boosts your curb appeal on a dime. 

Dividing Daylilies

How to Divide Daylilies

Step 1: Choose a plant to be divided and dig it out. 

The first step is to recognize when you have a daylily that is large enough to be divided. Choose a daylily that is large and healthy. Dividing daylilies is beneficial to the plant. If you find that your plant is becoming large and overgrown or is not producing the same amount of blossoms that it used to is an indicator that it might need to be divided. 

Daylilies techinically can be divided at any time of the year. The optimal time though is in late summer when all the blooms have deceased. Choose a daylily that is large and full. Rake away any mulch surrounding the plant. Dig 6-12 inches around the plant and lift the entire daylily out and lay it on its side, exposing the root system. 

Step 2: Dividing daylilies

Depending upon how large your daylily is, you can divide it into 2-4 sections. Pierce the root system with a clean and sharp shovel, dividing the daylily in half. In this situation, we divided this daylily into four sections. The object is to do as little damage to the root system and yet still divide the daylily. Using a clean tool helps prevent any disease or fungus from being transfered from one part of the garden to the other. 

Dividing daylilies into 4 sections will give you 4 new daylily plants for free! 

Step 3: Transplanting Daylilies

These plants are very resistant to dividing, but understand that when you transplant them, they might not “perk up” the way you would expect right away or for several months even. It is for this reason that the optimal time, visually,  for transplant is late summer/early fall. 

To transplant daylilies, prepare an area for the new divisions. Choose an area that is in full sun. Daylilies are quite tolerant to any type of soil. Loosen the soil and dig a hole a little larger than the size of the transplant. Place the plant in the hole and cover with soil only to the base of the plant. Water immediately after and maintain a watering schedule for the weeks after. 

Some people recommend cutting back the foliage to the base. I personally do not practice this unless the foliage is already faded and dead for the season. I like to allow the foliage to soak up all the sun’s nutrients for as long as possible before cutting the foliage down. This will ensure a healthier plant and root system for the next season. 

Here are some photos of our transplants which we divided just last year and how they look now! They are huge and thriving! 

The beauty of dividing daylilies is that you can share and trade plants with friends! My neighbor Connie has a gorgeous garden filled will a variety of daylilies that bloom from spring until fall and she generously gives me divisions for my garden. 

So much beauty for so little cost! I hope you get out into your garden this summer and either plant some new daylilies or start dividing daylilies and expand and share your garden for free! 

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