Holly Fern Question

21 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.

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Comments (4)

rhizo_1 (North AL) zone 7
21 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
21 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
21 years ago
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
21 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.