In your flower garden
Splitting clumps now will increase your stock for next year
As spring gets into full swing and there are so many things to do in the garden, it’s easy to forget the colour and joy that snowdrops brought last month. Now they’ve finished flowering and the blooms have faded, it’s the ideal time to divide congested clumps.
Like all bulbs, the best time to divide them is as the leaves are dying down. Any damage to the roots at this stage will be minimal and will have less effect on the growth of the bulbs than if it were done earlier in the season. When overcrowded, snowdrops may push their bulbs out of the soil. In less extreme cases the bulbs become squashed and don’t have room to reach flowering size. Dividing them and replanting in smaller clumps allows them to flourish. It turns a single, congested clump into several healthy ‘drifts’ of flowers for beautiful blooming next year.
Most snowdrops grow best in sun or part shade in soil that is not baked in summer. They can also be planted in grass, where they’re useful for naturalising because they naturally die down early – so they shouldn’t affect the mowing regime too much. After lifting the clumps, carefully pull them apart into groups of three or four bulbs to replant. Do this immediately so the roots don’t dry out and plant at the same depth, or slightly more if the bulbs had pushed themselves out of the soil.
Pot overwintered cannas
If you’ve bought new canna rhizomes or over wintered your old plants in a cool greenhouse, it’s time to start them into growth. Overwintered cannas should be cut back and divided into sections with fresh growing points. Discard rotten or old sections that don’t have shoots. Newly bought dried rhizomes often take longer to start to
