Every two years, White Pinks, Cranesbills, Spiræa, Aconitum, Gaillardia, Coreopsis, Chrysanthemum indicum, Galega, Doronicum, Nepeta, Geum aureum, Œnothera Youngi, and Œ. riparia.
Every three years, Tritoma, Megasea, Centranthus, Vinca, Iris, Narcissus.
A plasterer's hammer is a tool that is very handy for dividing plants. It has a hammer on one side of the head, and a cutting blade like a small chopper on the other. With this and a cold chisel and a strong knife one can divide any roots in comfort. I never divide things by brutally chopping them across with a spade. Plants that have soft fleshy tubers like Dahlias and Pæonies want the cold chisel; it can be cleverly inserted among the crowns so that injury to the tubers is avoided, and it is equally useful in the case of some plants whose points of attachment are almost as hard as wire, like Orobus vernus, or as tough as a door-mat, like Iris graminia. The Michaelmas Daisies of the Novæ Angliæ section make root tufts too close and hard to be cut with a knife, and here the chopper of the plasterer's hammer comes in. Where the crowns are closely crowded, as in this Aster, I find it best to chop at the bottom of the tuft, among the roots; when the chopper has cut about two-thirds through, the tuft can be separated with the hands, dividing naturally between the crowns, whereas if chopped from the top many crowns would have been spoilt.
Tritomas want dividing with care; it always looks as if one could pull every crown apart, but there is a tender point at the "collar," where they easily break off short; with these also it is best to chop from below or to use the chisel, making the cut well down in the yellow rooty region. Veratrums divide much in the same way, wanting a careful cut low down, the points of their crowns being also very easy to break off. The Christmas Rose is one of the most awkward plants to divide successfully. It cannot be done in a hurry. The only safe way is to wash the clumps well out and look carefully for the points of attachment, and cut them either with knife or chisel, according to their position. In this case the chisel should be narrower and sharper. Three-year-old tufts of St. Bruno's Lily puzzled me at first. The rather fleshy roots are so tightly interlaced that cutting is out of the question; but I found out that if the tuft is held tight in the two hands, and the hands are worked opposite ways with a rotary motion of about a quarter of a circle, that they soon come apart without being hurt in the least. Delphiniums easily break off at the crown if they are broken up by hand, but the roots cut so easily that it ought not to be a difficulty.
There are some plants in whose case one can never be sure whether they will divide well or not, such as Oriental Poppies and Eryngium Oliverianum. They behave in nearly the same way. Sometimes a Poppy or an Eryngium comes up with one thick root, impossible to divide, while the next door plant has a number of roots that are ready to drop apart like a bunch of Salsafy.
Everlasting Peas do nearly the same. One may dig up two plants—own brothers of say seven years old—and a rare job it is, for they go straight down into the earth nearly a yard deep. One of them will have a straight black post of a root 2½ inches thick without a break of any sort till it forks a foot underground, while the other will be a sort of loose rope of separate roots from half to three-quarters of an inch thick, that if carefully followed down and cleverly dissected where they join, will make strong plants at once. But the usual way to get young plants of Everlasting Pea is to look out in earliest spring for the many young growths that will be shooting, for these if taken off with a good bit of the white underground stem will root under a hand-light.
Most of the Primrose tribe divide pleasantly and easily: the worst are the auricula section; with these, for outdoor planting, one often has to slice a main root down to give a share of root to the offset.
When one is digging up plants with running roots, such as Gaultheria, Honeysuckle, Polygonum, Scotch Briars, and many of the Rubus tribe, or what is better, if one person is digging while another pulls up, it never does for the one who is pulling to give a steady haul; this is sure to end in breakage, whereas a root comes up willingly and unharmed in loosened ground to a succession of firm but gentle tugs, and one soon learns to suit the weight of the pulls to the strength of the plant, and to learn its breaking strain.
Towards the end of October outdoor flowers in anything like quantity cannot be expected, and yet there are patches of bloom here and there in nearly every corner of the garden. The pretty Mediterranean Periwinkle (Vinca acutiflora) is in full bloom. As with many another southern plant that in its own home likes a cool and shady place, it prefers a sunny one in our latitude. The flowers are of a pale and delicate grey-blue colour, nearly as large as those of the common Vinca major, but they are borne more generously as to numbers on radical shoots that form thick, healthy-looking tufts of polished green foliage. It is not very common in gardens, but distinctly desirable.
In the bulb-beds the bright-yellow Sternbergia lutea is in flower. At first sight it looks something like a Crocus of unusually firm and solid substance; but it is an Amaryllis, and its pure and even yellow colouring is quite unlike that of any of the Crocuses. The numerous upright leaves are thick, deep green, and glossy. It flowers rather shyly in our poor soil, even in well-made beds, doing much better in chalky ground.