Can you split ferns

Things You'll Need. Related Articles. Article Summary. Part 1. Water the fern generously two days before digging it up. Dig up an outdoor fern with a shovel. Push the shovel straight down into the soil about 6 inches away from the fern stems, all the way around the fern.

Then, push the shovel in again and lift the fern up out of the soil on the tip of the shovel. Use your fingers to get an indoor fern out of its pot. The fern should drop out of the pot. Rinse the soil off the roots gently with a hose or under a faucet. You want to avoid ripping or tearing the roots so also wash them off carefully and on a gentle or low stream of water.

Examine the roots to determine if they are rhizomatous, clumping, or spreading. Rhizomatous roots are thick, underground stems from which smaller fibrous roots grow.

Your fern may have sections of thick, fleshy roots with fine roots growing from them. Ostrich ferns Matteuccia struthiopteris are commonly grown ferns with rhizomatous roots.

These are clump-forming roots. Royal fern Osmunda regalis is one of the fern species that has a clump-forming root system. A spreading root system is somewhat similar to a clumping root system but the roots originate from all over the entire underside of the fern rather than just the center. Sword fern Polystichum munitum is a commonly grown species that has a spreading root system. Part 2.

Divide a fern with rhizomatous roots by cutting the rhizomes apart. Each division must have at least one rhizome with healthy fibrous roots and several leaves.

Divide a fern with a clumping root system by cutting them into sections with a sharp knife. Position the knife between the leaves over the thick, fleshy crown and push the knife down through the crown. Each division must have a section of the crown where the roots originate and several healthy leaves.

Divide a fern with a spreading root system by working it apart with your fingers. Each new division needs to have a few leaves with a healthy mass of roots attached. If a few roots remain attached between two sections, snip the connecting roots with scissors. Repot or plant the new divisions right away. Be sure to only repot or plant healthy divisions. Discard the dead centers from clumping ferns and damaged or diseased rhizomes with dark, mushy, unhealthy-looking sections.

Water the newly-planted or potted divisions generously right after planting them. Pour the water evenly over the potting soil until it drains freely from the bottom. Be sure to water them again when the top of the potting mix begins to dry. Mist the new divisions every morning for one month to ensure they get enough moisture. If your fern starts to drop their leaves, this is a sign they are not getting enough water. So if this occurs, increase how often you water them. Always divide outdoor ferns in the fall or in early spring.

The best times to divide outdoor ferns are in the fall when they lose their leaves after the first hard frost or very early in the spring when they begin to send up new shoots. Always divide an indoor fern in the spring once its container is full of roots. This will allow for new growth to form faster, and make transplanting easier. Next, remove the fern from the container. Usually at this point of the year, it is as simple as turning over and pulling out.

Ferns are tough and can handle a bit of tugging if necessary. You many need to use a knife to cut free any roots that have grown through the bottom container holes to make removal easier. Using a sharp shovel or knife, A Hori-Hori tool works wonders for dividing nearly any perennial plant , divide the root ball into equal portions to create new plants. Ferns do not do well when there is too much space, so keeping the new pots from being too big is important.

Fill the bottom of your container with a high quality potting mix and place the divided fern in the pot. Fill around the edges, gently firming the soil to the roots.

There is no need to fertilize ferns at this point. Ferns require little additional nutrients to thrive. And a good potting soil is contains more than enough to obtain good growth. If done early enough in the fall and if temperatures are not freezing at night, place the plant in a shady area outdoors. The warmer weather will help start the new growth before having to bring indoors. Try to cut as close to the bottom as you can.

Move the fronds around until you can find a clear center part, just like with your hair. Stick the point of a shovel into the part until it creates a divot in the root. This makes it easier to find the center line again when you dig up the fern and it starts flopping around. Fern roots are very shallow, so it shouldn't take much effort to dig them up.

Just work your way around the outside edge with the shovel and pop it up. I was surprised to find my huge fern left a hole only a couple inches deep!

I wanted to get at least two plants out of this huge one, so I used a serrated garden trowel to cut the root ball down the middle. Don't worry, the fern can take some abuse! Here you can clearly see how this particular fern grows. The fronds grow in clumps with a central root, like a bunch of bananas. It gets more crowded as older fronds die off, leaving a scraggly plant instead of a lush fern. Each little bundle comes away from the central plant pretty easily, and can be replanted by itself.

Yay for free plants! I saved one half of the fern to go back into the hole it came from. Spread mulch around the base to help the newly divided fern retain water. You never would have guessed this is only half the plant! The other half was divided into one larger plant and four smaller ones. These went into the ground along the back fence.

Hopefully by next year, they'll fill in the empty space and help create a lush woodland garden. My future garden. Photo by Jay Sifford Garden Design. Looking for more plants for your shade garden?