I have a huuuuuuuge blue mophead and am wondering if I can somehow cut the main rootball in half and transplant 1/2 without killing either? I can't seem to find anything on taking a piece of a rootball off.
Constantly Learning,...
-
nikita2525
- Newly Registered
- Posts: 1
- Joined: Sun Jul 06, 2008 10:52 am
- Location: NE GA
-
NewjerseyTea
- Senior Member
- Posts: 143
- Joined: Sat Feb 23, 2008 10:14 am
- Location: Piedmont Area, Northern NJ
Hi nikita,
I was fascinated by the title of your post and checked in to see what "twinning" was. What a clever way to describe dividing a plant.
I am not an expert on dividing hydrangea but I did have a big old one to move to make space. Mine was divided in 4 because I couldn't successfully dig it out in one piece. I used a shovel and a pitchfork and made sure each part had sufficient roots. The reason I thought it would not suffer from the division was because I had noticed that as it increased in width the outer branches rooted and I could remove small sections in an attempt to keep it smaller. All the small sections were replanted and survived.
My uncle on the other hand had a enormous hydrangea moved from one yard to another in one piece. Although it survived it never did reach it's former glory.
I was fascinated by the title of your post and checked in to see what "twinning" was. What a clever way to describe dividing a plant.
I am not an expert on dividing hydrangea but I did have a big old one to move to make space. Mine was divided in 4 because I couldn't successfully dig it out in one piece. I used a shovel and a pitchfork and made sure each part had sufficient roots. The reason I thought it would not suffer from the division was because I had noticed that as it increased in width the outer branches rooted and I could remove small sections in an attempt to keep it smaller. All the small sections were replanted and survived.
My uncle on the other hand had a enormous hydrangea moved from one yard to another in one piece. Although it survived it never did reach it's former glory.
-
Charlie MV
- Greener Thumb
- Posts: 1544
- Joined: Thu May 08, 2008 11:48 pm
I'm a relatively novice gardener. I don't know if this will be helpful but here's one hydrangea story that may apply. We were doing a construction project last year that doomed a large one. I wanted to try to save it. I dug for 2 hours and had a hole about 4 feet in circumference around the plant. I couldn't budge it by pulling. I couldn't pry it with a shovel. I had my wife spread it while I butchered it wit an ax. No joy. I tied it to my lawn tractor and yanked. All that happened was spinning wheels and tractor wheelies. It was kind of fun. As we lay gasping on the ground, sucking Gatorade, we decided the bush was toast. I dug and chopped and finally were able to yank it out in five pieces with the pick up.
It came up roots and all with very little dirt clinging to them. Thus far we had about 7 hours in the project and in my advanced geezerfied condition , I was way to tired to screw with this thing anymore that day. I went inside for my nightly shout at CNN. They anger me a bit.
The next day I saw the hydrangea project laying in the yard,bare roots dried and pitiful. I felt guilty and decided to try to save it even though I felt it tried to kill me the day before. I divided it into 5 semicoherent plants, dug the holes and stuck the roots in a mix of good topsoil and manure. It took some work but they finally stood kind of drunkenly so I watered them in and kept watering for 2 weeks. The two larger plants recovered almost immediately. 3 smaller plants withered, leaves browned and I thought that was that. We pruned the 3 dead looking ones back to about 2 inches. To top it all off this was late spring.
The two larger plants had lovely blooms by summer. The three dead looking ones are growing. I'll know by next spring whether the 3 weak ones will bloom but I'm feeding the soil and crossing my fingers. In my best Forrest Gump voice I'll say that hydrangeas are tough.
It came up roots and all with very little dirt clinging to them. Thus far we had about 7 hours in the project and in my advanced geezerfied condition , I was way to tired to screw with this thing anymore that day. I went inside for my nightly shout at CNN. They anger me a bit.
The next day I saw the hydrangea project laying in the yard,bare roots dried and pitiful. I felt guilty and decided to try to save it even though I felt it tried to kill me the day before. I divided it into 5 semicoherent plants, dug the holes and stuck the roots in a mix of good topsoil and manure. It took some work but they finally stood kind of drunkenly so I watered them in and kept watering for 2 weeks. The two larger plants recovered almost immediately. 3 smaller plants withered, leaves browned and I thought that was that. We pruned the 3 dead looking ones back to about 2 inches. To top it all off this was late spring.
The two larger plants had lovely blooms by summer. The three dead looking ones are growing. I'll know by next spring whether the 3 weak ones will bloom but I'm feeding the soil and crossing my fingers. In my best Forrest Gump voice I'll say that hydrangeas are tough.