Well yeah, more or less. I would probably do it now as UK has a long and mild autumn and I have a (vague) rule of thumb regarding dividing times - plants which bloom before the summer solstice(campanulas, siberian iris, geranium sylvaticum, brunnera) are good to go for an autumn division...while the later blooming plants (such as asters, rudbeckias, heleniums) wait till spring...but in your climate, you might do things differently as far as timing goes.

Indeed, the rootball should lift quite easily - trench around it straight down and try to keep each clump as intact as possible...and I usually ensure the plant has been fully watered a few hours before lifting so it is fat with capillary fluid. Pieces can be prised apart using your hands or a couple of back to back forks.

yep... but save your mulch ... pull it back .. and try not to get soil on top of it ...

move a few in fall .. then move a few in spring.. and then learn for yourself.. if there is a preferred time ... i remember my own experiments ..

ken

to suck up your courage ... think about the fact that there would be no nursery industry... if the plants were so foo foo that they cant be moved ... eh ...

no matter what you do .. after the move.. keep them well watered.. until the roots get readjusted ....

the next question ... is whether you should cut them back ... less plant above.. to support with disturbed roots ... i would probably default until mid fall ... when they started looking ugly anyway .... but with enough time with warm soil ...

ken

Salvia are tough characters and will likely survive anything you do to them. They seem to be tap-rooted so dig deeply on the chunks you want to take out, otherwise they will just sprout back up.

You may want to cut them all back, and then evaluate which pieces to remove. Because of the tap root, I have had mixed success in getting chunks to survive when I re-plant them. But I'm usually trying to get rid of them, not propagate them. Since yours have not been there too long, maybe the roots won't be so deep.

Good luck!

Thanks all. Honestly, I don't think I will replant anything that I take out, because I have nowhere to put it.

Sorry to hear they have "tap roots" -- I once planted Sentimental Blue Balloon Flower and decided to pull it out since I put it in a dumb place. Everytime I think I have it all, the next summer, it comes right back (just smaller and smaller).

Yeah I hate to say it but I tried taking out two 'Snow Hill' saliva over and over, even going so far as to apply Roundup. They still keep coming back! I moved one chunk and of course now it's sulking and acting pitiful in its new location. And I'm like, "I thought you had superpowers and could grow in a nuclear reactor! Shape up!" Oddly enough it doesn't say much back to me.

But I think with them there for only 15 months it will be easier. The roots will not have reached Earth's mantle yet.

Hummm--I think any roots that are left in the ground will sprout a plant, even after you dig around to try to get them all and think you did. Mine was there for a year before moving it to the dry shade. It sulked and died back but I didn't care if it made it or not but it did. It came back looking good the next spring and all in all, I now have more respect for it since it actually grows, blooms and looks healthy in dry shade under the neighbors pin oak close to our driveway where it only gets late afternoon sun and no irrigation. That might have something to do with those indestructible roots, ya think?.

Anyway, that turned it from an uninteresting, common and over used plant that is always offered for sale at places like Home Depot into a more unique and useful plant in my book because most plants wouldn't do well in those conditions. And, it is native, I'd seen it for sale commercially so long I'd lost touch and actually forgotten it was a native. Long time commercialization will do that.

I think Karin is on to something...cut the plants back so you can see what you have...and as many other posters have said the plants are close to indestructible, so you won't lose much.

back in the day .. i would choose one.. perhaps.. the one in the middle.. dig it up.. bare root it.. and learn all about what is going on underground ...

thats when i really started to learn ...

ken