It's late to be planting cucumbers in zone 5. Most take 55-60 days to maturity fro m seed. That would bring you to the end of September. If we have a warm fall, it would probably be fine. If we have an early frost, you'll be scrambling to cover plants.

I've been cutting back things for a little over a week now. Prior to that the ground was like walking on a waterbed from all the snow melt. I am still trying to stay out of the garden beds while cutting back. I have a few stepping stones placed in some beds to give me a place to stand or squat. It is not easy and I look like I am playing twister trying to stay out of the beds. After a couple of hours of work my first day out I had four big blisters on my pruner hand and a VERY sore hamstring. What I do now is cut off the old dried up growth and break or cut it into smaller pieces and toss it back on the beds to act as mulch. Then I lightly fluff up the mulch, matted leaves, and debris with a rake...hopefully before new growth would be damaged. I'm going to try just doing this for a while and not use any more wood mulch around plants. I hate trying to dig in a bed that has big hard wood chips ground deep into the soil. Next year I may try getting a long handled hedge trimmer to reach in and cut down the old growth. Then use a rake to pull it out to be cut up and tossed back in. I don't try to break up anything super thick or woody and just put that out for yard waste pickup or in a brush pile. The ornamental grass cuttings would just blow off the beds, so I break them up a little and use them to mulch in my fenced off veggie garden along with purchased straw. I'm in northern IL too and I just had my first few crocus blossoms a few days ago. Wish I could remember which variety they are because they are much earlier than the other varieties which just have leaves up. My daffodils are about 3-4" up too. The only perennials I noticed with new growth is some catmint, a few columbines, and one errant hosta shoot. We got a few pansies put out yesterday just for a little early color.

Plant them any time now, but make sure they are hardened off first, as mentioned in the first post. It's definitely perennial planting time where I am. If you feel they are just too small to be directly planted (like a one stem wonder with a puny root system), then you could also pot up and let them grow on in pots for the season and plant in fall, as the second poster mentioned.

Yes, you can divide them now. The size you divide them to is up to you. They aren't real fast growers, so base it on how you want them to look in the new bed, and how patient you are.