Digging will absolutely wait until spring. As that time gets closer I will have to figure out exactly when is best(right before growth shows/as new growth shows/just past final frost). For now I am trying to do all of my planning so I am ready when weather permits. I also didn't mean to say I "wouldn't bother" if it didn't style well. I want to make sure I am trimming in the right direction to get favorable results. If the nandina mostly rebuds right beneath the cut I am just going to be limited to the uprights or maybe a broom style. I have not done a complete trim to final shape yet so my visualization is not so strong. Worst case I have a few to work with so I will try a couple different things and keep notes.

I have several Nandina domestica. The oldest one is on the east side of the house where it gets a lot of sun. The soil there is pretty good, but there's a lot of competition from perennials and from other, older shrubs. Perhaps because of the location, this one has been leaning or creeping forward - I find branches that are more or less lying on the ground, heading south and then growing upright some feet away from the center of the plant. I think this is one of the compact cultivars, but I don't remember exactly. The newer ones are on the south side of the garage wall. They're in more sun, and the soil there is well-amended but somehow seems to get compacted every year; they're never watered. That garden almost never gets weeded, either, so they're competing mainly with weeds - New York iron weed, sweet autumn clematis, and grasses. These berry a little better than the older one, maybe because there are 2 of them. Those are the straight species, according to the vendor, Lazy S'S Farm, who propagated them on site. I've had some unsightly die-back on all of these, but overall I like them - actually I love the foliage and the berries are spectacular.

Hi. Thanks for the advice. Our weather is improving, temp. wise, and I think I will go ahead and divide the fern itself. I actually do have some 12" and 14" wire baskets that we "stuff" with our own moss. Have grown many kinds of begonias in those, but I actually would prefer the ferns. I would also like to get another Staghorn this season. The problem I have with those is that they get so big that when they have to come in for the winter, I just don't have a place to water them without making a mess. Any suggestions? My husband is the 'fern man'. He basically works with the garden ferns, but I'm slowly reintroducing him to more of the 'exotic' types. The 'deers' tongue and the dainty Maidenhair are often winter hardy here. So is the Pteris. We lost alot of them a few years back when we had a hard winter. Our hardy ferns are now sending up their beautiful fiddleheads. Is it too late to divide? They are getting huge and have broken the containers they were in a couple of years ago. I'd finally like to put them in the ground. We have a 30 year old stand of nandinas that my dad and I planted when my folks used to live here. I'd always been told that they didn't send out new plants, but they certainly have gone crazy with age. Last season we had to cut many of them down to the ground as they were blocking one another out. Can I dig some of the new babies and move them to another place? Well, I've asked enough questions! Thanks. SAM

i cant tell you how many baby yellowish conifers i thought were sickly yellow.. for years. . chlorotic ... and dying ... until they put on enough size to look good.. lol ... dont forget.. if your shade is deciduous trees .. your sun levels will go up.. once those leaves fall .. so its an added variable ... color change in fall is never exactly predictable ... because so many variables impact such ... so it would be very hard for anyone to tell you.. how its will all time out in your yard ... one trick i have for predicting such.. is to just learn to ID it as you drive the area ... and see when others are doing their thing ... ken