Saturday 17 September 2016

Dividing the Rudbeckia

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that my Rudbeckia had been poor this year, producing very few flowers compared with previous years. This is it in late August. Hardly impressive.


Rudbeckia fulgida "Goldsturm"


This plant had been in the same container for three years, and I felt sure that the reason for its poor performance was that it had not only run out of nutrients, but also had become pot-bound - in other words the container had become clogged with a mass of roots. Perennials like this do need to be dug up, divided and re-planted every so often, so that's what I decided to do today.


I tipped the container out onto my trusty groundsheet (one of my most useful bits of gardening equipment!), and immediately my suspicions were confirmed:


A solid mass of roots!

Nevertheless, there was a lot of good planting material too.



There were perhaps 30 little plantlets  - almost like a whole series of rooted cuttings.



So I chose a few of the best ones, and planted them back in the original container, but with fresh compost.



There were loads of good plants and I was loath to chuck them away, so I also put some into 6-inch pots.



Six, in fact.




Even the less-good ones were not discarded. I stuck them into a little vacant patch in the shrub border (no photo).


So what do you reckon? Do you think I'll have good Rudbeckias next year?

3 comments:

  1. That's always a problem when dividng plants - you end up with far more than you can cope with. Our excesses end up on the plot.

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  2. I was hoping to divide up my Rudbeckia this Autumn as it's taken over one of the beds but watching gardeners World last night it seems that Rubeckia is best split in the spring, this gives me a big problem as the bed is crammed full of spring bulbs which would get disturbed if I leave it till spring. Seems there is no way to win this one!

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  3. Odds are good that you will indeed :)

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