I also divide my shastas in the spring, mine also stay green all winter. I have several varities some yes do stay lanky after the divide and some get a little more full by the end of the year. This year I plan to attempt to split some of mine this fall. I have never split my shastas in the fall but I am going to try it this year since our weather has been so weird lately. My suggestion is not dig up the entire plant just the part you want to thin out. I take my hand shovel put it approximately where I want to seperate it from the rest of the plant. Thats where I dig, so that the main part of the plant will not have to suffer through the shock along with the part I seperated. Oilpanter is right about taking cuttings, shasta's root extremely easily from cuttings. You can do the cuttings during the growing season of the plant. Though most shastas totally benefit from a complete split every so often. Shasta's are supposedly a short lived plant. Its advised on some varities to actually split every 3 years and remove the middle and disregard, since the majority of the blooms come from the "new" shoots. I personally think dividing in fall will be ok since I not only notice my plant to stay green all year but I also notice new growth in the winter months. I would be curious to hear from others in warmer zones to find if they have tried splitting their shastas in the fall.

tasymo, the picture I posted is from today - I just ran out and took it right before posting it. I saw this thread about Shasta's and saw that I could add something! I bought some Crazy Daisy this year. I had a piece that a friend gave me last summer, but it never seemed to settle in right. I only had couple of blooms. When I looked for it to come back this spring, I found the space where it had been, and when digging there, I found that the plant had rotted away. We have lots of clay in our soil, but I had dug it a nice hole and replaced the soil with amended soil. I planted the new plant at the other side of the house, where it will get full sun all day long. The other plant had afternoon sun. I hope I can keep this CD going. Linda

I just winter sowed some last winter. I had two varieties..Becky and Snowcap. I had good germination, planted the seedlings out late, but half of them bloomed by late summer and were still in bloom up to the frost. I was amazed at how large a blooming clump I had from first year seedlings. I wasn't sure what to expect, whether the Hybrid varieties would come true from seed, but they seem to have. Previously I had Alaska, which I didn't like. It was taller than I wanted and flopped horribly and I wasn't expecting to stake it. The Becky is a very neat compact shorter variety that had no flopping and the Snow cap was even more compact. I can't wait to see what they look like next year. I didn't realize that they prefer really good drainage, but I am relieved that I did plant them all in the right place. A full sun bed, that is more like a berm that should give them great drainage. This is not a very good picture. The blossoms weren't fresh and the surrounding plants are looking pretty spent, but it was at the end of one of our driest summers yet and this particular bed had received very little supplemental watering. You can see there are two clumps and the one on the right is smaller. I am planning on moving them in the spring to give them more room. It was taken on September 25th. A big thank you to two people who traded me these seed!! You know who you are. :-) pm2

Not a Shasta but does anyone grow Marguerites, Chrysanthemum frutescens not a hardy perennial (have to take cuttings) for me but should do well in warmer climes. I haven't grown them for years, in fact I can't really say I've seen them in the garden centers the last few years. Annette