where are you ...

fall is a great time to do such.. as is spring ... i would do it when you have consistent cool night.. mid 60s or below .... and coller days.. time for roots to get settled without heat ....

looks like all could be divided and smaller pieces put back ... and the excess moved elsewhere ...

i would dig up the whole plant.. and use my hands to SEE whats below ground.. and work them apart.. but you can try just using a sharpened shovel and doing it in the ground ...

the sedum is just coming into bloom ... i would leave that til spring ...

all said.. it looks just about perfect to me.. i dont know why you want to mess with it ... but its your vision ... so do as you please.... it will be a great learning curve ... and most of it it bulletproof stuff ...

btw .. i dont see a jacobs ladder.. for most of us.. its a foo foo short lived PIA plant.. that has died for us.. do what you want to or with it.. but if it doesnt come back.. dont be surprised ...

ken

Nice bed. Aren't you lucky to have some existing plantings. It does look a bit crowded to me, too. It will improve the bed a lot to just deadhead the spent hosta flowers. You might consider a June haircut to the sedums next year adepending upon where you live. This will compact the plant somewhat.

i am always surprised to see those drought tolerant plants with hostas. In my neck of the woods even sun tolerant hostas look very tired looking by the time the sedums, coreopsis, etc come,into their own. You might consider just thinning some of the hostas (spring or fall, again depending upon your location) but first deadhead them to see if that is enough to satisfy your vision.

Thanks so much for the feedback..I'm sorry, I'm in Northern Maine. - Zone 4 in the garden world? I'll attach a picture of what everyone is "calling" Jacobs Ladder, perhaps it isn't and you can help me ID it. Either way, it's lost amongst those bigger plants as last year it wasn't. And just to clarify , to dead head to mean cut away the purple flower blooms of the hostas? As I have said, before buying the home, I didn't have a yard but love beautiful gardens. Now I'm driving myself insane trying to get it right !

I like the full look as well but it doesn't hurt to pare back. They'll grow again. I'd be tempted to cut a nice neat trench edge to balance the bed's exuberance. I wouldn't bother digging them up. Just cut chunks off the side with a spade.

I'm in north-central Connecticut so not far from you. Yes, that's variegated Jacob's ladder/Polemonium reptans 'Stairway to Heaven' if I'm not mistaken. I bought two this year that I set in containers. Everything does appear to be crammed into the small bed. Moving things to give them more 'real estate' is not a bad idea if you don't like the crammed together look. I tend to give my perennials considerably more space but I have an acre of land so plenty to spare.

Dead heading usually refers to snipping off spent blooms once the flowers fade.

Rather than drive yourself nuts, drive yourself to the library and borrow 'The Well-Tended Perennial Garden' by Tracy DiSabato-Aust. It's considered one of the foremost gardening guides available. I've been gardening since I was 6 or 7 years old so I've always known the fundamentals thanks to my parents and grandparents. I just brought what I knew forward into this century when I moved here.

"When is the best time to thin out this bed- spring or fall?"

Your instincts are good; either is fine so long as the plants receive adequate moisture once they're replanted. In a dry season, I use recycled gallon containers with a pinhole punched an inch from the bottom. I fill them with water and set the jugs close to the base of the plants. Water gradually exits the pinhole. Water remaining in the container once the level falls below the pinhole holds it in place.

I think sometimes I make things hard then they have to be

==>> you might be on to something here ....

this bed .. might be the least of your problems ....

perhaps a new post.. with 3 pics.. of different spots.. and we could discuss.. which needs work the most ...

but one thing for sure.. this bed does NOT require work ... unless you want to do so ...

you might want to learn how to edge beds.. to stop grass from invading.. in the long run.. that will get you far ... another post ... ???? ... see link below.. i am personally not in favor of any of those products and prefer the natural shovel edged grass .....

ken

https://www.google.com/search?q=edging+garden+beds&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi_u__Ek-TOAhVPySYKHQEDCccQ_AUICSgC&biw=926&bih=745&dpr=0.9#tbm=isch&q=edged+garden+beds

haha, I was kind of hoping you would post a photo! Beautiful and something really special to have in your garden like that.

Don't worry too much about the questions. Most of gardening is pretty easy, you let things grow and get rid of whatever you don't like, either by shovel or pruner. Sometimes things die... then you shouldn't bother with the pruning option.

Gwen - don't hesitate to pepper us with questions. Chances are most of us here have already asked the same questions multiple times over the years. The best gardening technique I ever learned was "seek and ye shall find." The information is available and at your fingertips. How do I know balloon flowers bloom in August? They're blooming outside my window right now. How do I know they tolerate being whacked down in June so they don't flop when they bloom? Ten plus years of growing them in my garden.

I'd post photos if I could but haven't gotten the hang of it since the switch from GardenWeb to Houzz. I can only respond to direct questions that relate to the things I grow on what I call my 'little green acre.' I redesigned it when I moved here in 2005. I like to think I also simplified it since most everything growing in my various beds these days pretty much need minimal help from me from one year to the next.

BTW - growing at the right in the photo above is Polychroma spurge euphorbia (common name cushion spurge). I've grown it since my son was age 8. He's 48 this year.