How to Divide and Replant Daylilies in The Spring to Create More Plants for Free!

If you have daylilies in your garden, you are lucky indeed! “The perfect perennial” as many of us gardeners call it has such amazing large, exotic looking blooms in so many different bright colors, and – let’s be honest – they require so little maintenance that we even forget about them. But there’s more… It’s so easy to propagate Hemerocallis by dividing clumps that you can get so many more blooms, or gift them to your neighbor, with very little effort. And the best time to divide your daylilies is now: early spring, when they have just started to emerge from the ground.

And don’t worry; your daylily clumps will soon thicken up again after you have divided them, so you won’t get any gaps in your border or beds.

Do you want to know how to divide and transplant daylilies in spring? Off we go!

The Advantages of Dividing Daylilies in Spring

Dividing daylilies in spring has a few advantages; and I want to share them with you:

• Of course, the first that springs to mind is that you will get more daylily plants from the same clump; so, you will propagate them.
• It will also prevent overcrowded clumps…
• …So, you will prevent diseases and pest infestations, as the dense foliage daylilies produce needs ventilation to keep healthy.
• It will also promote new growth.
• …And with new growth, you will get more flowers!
• Also, it is easier to handle daylily clumps in spring, rather than in summer when they get really big and dense.

When daylily clumps get too overcrowded, they produce fewer flowers, you may have noticed this if you have been growing them for some years.

So, let’s dive in!

When to Divide Daylilies in Spring

I can hear you… “It’s in the title; it’s spring,” you are thinking. Ok, yes, but I have three points to make:

• You can divide daylilies all through spring (and in summer and fall as well), but you will get best results if you do it early in the season, in March. But don’t worry if you are late.
• You should not divide daylilies too often, in spring or any other season; do it every 3 to 5 years.
• Choose a cloudy and fresh day. This will reduce the stress you give to your daylilies when uprooting them.

How to Divide and Transplant Daylilies

Ok, now you know this, let’s see how you can propagate Hemerocallis by clump division successfully.

Prepare the Transplanting Area for Your Daylilies

You don’t want your daylilies to spend a long time out of the soil; you need to transplant them straight away. They are not plants that like being uprooted for more than 30 minutes or so. For this reason, you must prepare their “new home” beforehand.

Dig holes that are 12 to 18 inches wide (30 to 45 cm) and about 8 inches deep (20 cm) so your daylilies will fit in snugly.

Prepare the soil; daylilies are not fussy; they can grow in most types of soil, loam, clay, sand or chalk based as well, as long as well drained and moderately fertile.

However, if you want to give your daylily transplants a great start in life, you should use well drained, organically rich loam, with a pH between 6.0 and 7.0.

You will need about twice as much soil as you need to fill the holes. And why? Because you’ll have to fill the holes left when you remove the daylilies from their original position.

So, now you are ready for aa fast “move”, you can start digging up your daylilies.

Uproot the Daylily Clumps

Now it’s time to start propagating your daylilies, and you will need a fork (or a spade) to do it. Here is how to proceed:

• Choose a dense clump of daylilies.
• Dig the fork (or spade) deep into the soil about 4 to 6 inches (10 to 15 cm) away from the clump.
• Now you can either lift the whole clump, or one side of it, if you have enough fans (sets of leaves) and individual daylilies to divide it.

Divide the Daylily Clump into Smaller Ones

Don’t us a spade or blade to divide the clumps now, instead:

• Gently divide the clumps with your hands; just pull them apart. Each new clump should have at least 5 daylilies (5 fans of leaves).
• Make sure that each clump has a good set of roots.
• Look at them and cut any sick roots with a sterile blade; you should also cut overly long roots; this will also promote new growth.
• Remove any dead or yellowing fan of leaves.
• Rest the original clump back.
• Fill in the whole straight away with the soil you have prepared and press it down with your foot.

Next…

Transplant the New Clumps to their New Place

It’s now finally time to transplant the new clumps you have obtained to their new “homes”, to the holes you have prepared.

• Fill the bottom of the hole with the prepared soil, so that the base of the fans of your daylilies are at ground level.
• Place the daylily clump in the middle of the hole.
• Fill in the sides and press the soil with your feet or hands.
• The daylilies should be at the same level as they were with the original clump, so, with the base of the fans just above the ground.

And finally…

Three Things to Do After You Have Propagated Your Daylilies by Dividing the Clumps

And now we come to the last few things to do, three to be precise.

• Water the new and old clumps abundantly and deeply, but without overwatering (about 1 inch of water, or 2.5 cm).
• Mulch around the new and old clumps, to keep the soil humid and fertile.
• Do not fertilize yet! To start with, the soil is already fertile, and then you should wait till the daylilies start growing new leaves to feed them with a balanced fertilizer, with NPK 10-10-10 or 12-12-12.

Keep them soil moist but never soaking wet and you’ll soon have a massive display from your old and news clumps of daylilies!

Divide Your Daylilies in Spring and Get Lots of New Flowers for Free!

As you can see, it’s very easy to divide and propagate daylilies and get many more blooms from them. But I have a final tip for you. If you have a neighbor (or more) with different Hemerocallis varieties from yours, you could decide to divide them at the same time and swap them.

This way, you won’t only have more daylily flowers, you will also widen your own collection!