As part of the Donegal ETB Horticulture program we undertook a session on plant division and our 'victim' was some large clumps of Chives, freshly removed from a garden bed. Normal process undertaken, cutting back, splitting into desired sizes, roots dusted with Mycorrhizal fungii and then potting up to let them form a nice root system, then they'll be planted back into the garden.
Always a nice sight, lots of buds on Chives. Chives is of course a herb, you can eat the leaves and flowers (flowers are especially tasty), but I look upon it in my own garden as an informal hedge, I have it planted as a front to a few beds and it works well. Lots of summer flowers, with rapid early spring growth - and then every year I can produce more from each plant either by gathering seeds or by splitting them...
lifting carefully with fork
Chives are pretty robust perennial plants, and one which is ideal to split and produce new plants now. chives grow as a thick clump, doubling in size every year, so lifting and splitting every so often is a great way of increasing plant stock, and will reinvigorate older clumps. Lift entire club out of ground with a fork, seperate simply by pulling apart into smaller clumps, then pot or plant out into newly conditioned soil. We potted these so we can plant them again in month or so...
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