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Georgia Gardener

Holly Fern Question

18 years ago

I have two large beds of holly ferns. They've been in this spot for many years. Probably 4 or 5. They've been beautiful. But this year they haven't looked great. I thought maybe I needed to divide them. So tonight I dug up one bed. I cleaned up the individual plants alot. There are still some healthy looking very long stems on them though. Honestly with one exception I didn't see a natural place to divide them. Obviously I've never done this with them before.

So after cutting off alot of dead or spindly looking stems I put about half of the original plants back in the spot I had them before. And the rest I will put somewhere else. Except for one of them, I didn't divide the original plants. Is that okay? Also, should I go ahead and cut off all the foliage or will leaving the few healthy looking stems be okay? I'm planning to do the second bed tomorrow night.

TIA for any advise.

Comments (4)

rhizo_1 (North AL) zone 7
18 years ago
These plants can be thinned to give them more room, but not divided. They respond very well to a very good clipping and should come back beautifully.
GardeningGGirl
Original Author
18 years ago
Yikes, well some of them seemed to have a natural spot for dividing and so I did. Guess well see how they do.
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JJeane
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I've chopped them up many times...... I started years ago with one plant. Dug it up and chopped it into two pieces. Since then I've moved them to a new house and chopped them up again...... I think I've not got 15 or so.... never had any problems. I think I even divided some in July. They seem to be very hardy and take a lot of abuse.
GardeningGGirl
Original Author
18 years ago
I heard from the people at Georgia Perimeter College...they have the large fern collection. They said to just cut the crown in pieces, similar to the way you do hostas. I did that with some of them but not all. I think I have more holly fern than I could ever want now. LOL!! I did plant most of them though. And I'm giving the rest away.

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