You have goals for your landscape, lawn, or garden area, and one of them is to craft a jaw-dropping design that’s well-within you means. Sometimes to attain lofty goals like this, it’s important to stretch your budget a bit – in other words, sometimes you need to cut corners where you can afford to, and one of the best ways to do this is by transplanting your perennials.
The beautiful thing about season flowers is that they’re beautiful, versatile, and resilient. Usually, barring any crazy circumstances, they’ll keep coming back again and again. More than that, they’ll typically come back bigger and better than ever (to a certain point, of course).
As experts in not only the perennial plant game, but also the Florida landscaping industry in general, we’ve long recommended transplanting seasonal flowers once Fall rolls around in order to keep them healthy, happy, and hearty enough to continue to repopulate every year. It’s a good way to keep your initial plants for a long time, which translates to spending less money on getting new, young plants or flowers every year.
Not yet convinced? No worries. We’ve constructed an entire article to help better explain why we think dividing and transplanting seasonal flowers as the seasons change could help you better spend your landscaping dollars.
Why Should I Bother Transplanting My Seasonal Flowers?
First things first, let’s make sure we’re all on the same page about seasonal flowers in general. Perennial plants and flowers are often called the come-back-kids of the flora and fauna world, an appropriate name, as they typically live for more than two years, and produce seeds each year. Seasonal flowers will usually die down with cold weather and frost, but bloom back up from roots or stems in the springtime. In other words, perennials will return to your landscape to grace your property year after year after year.
So, if your perennials are going to keep coming back, why bother transplanting them?
First off, it keeps them healthy and beautiful. If your seasonal flowers grow back without transplant or division, they’ll overcrowd, have fewer flowers, or grow smaller, weaker flowers with every season. It also keeps them tamed. Sometimes, seasonal flowers can grow out of control relatively quickly, and if you divide them every year or two you can count on keeping them in check.
Seasonal flowers have been known to grow quickly, forming large clumps in their centers, and if you don’t divide them and transplant them out every so often, you can pretty much expect to see a giant, unsightly, and bare hole in the middle of them. Even more so, if you leave your perennials to overtake a specific area, you can expect the soil to become depleted of nutrients – this won’t just harm the way your perennials are growing but will guarantee that pests and fungi can invade if you’re not granting your seasonal flowers the proper circulation or airflow.
Okay, You’ve Got My Attention – When Should I Rotate my Flowers?
You’re probably wondering when you should think about transplanting and dividing your seasonal flowers. The answer—in Florida, you can do so every season.
Fall in Florida might not be the beautiful, crisp weather that other states experience, but it’s hard to deny that Fall in Florida is definitely cooler than Summer. Transplanting and dividing your perennials in Fall gives your plants time to set new roots before the scorching summer season rolls around again when it’s incredibly difficult for anything to get growing.
Fall, Winter, and even Spring typically offer steadier soil temperatures and more moisture for your plants, which will likely help rapid root developments that get your plant established. Additionally, the entire process of dividing and transplanting your seasonal flowers, though necessary, can definitely stress your plants. They’ll likely recover much better in cool, moist conditions that Fall, Winter, and Spring can offer. (well, as cool and moist as it gets in Florida, right?).
That being said though, the beautiful thing about Florida is that you don’t have to just rotate your flowers once a year. You can start a flower rotation for all seasons! In fact, we encourage a seasonal flower rotation for spring, fall, and winter!
Tips for the Transplant
We understand that transplanting your beloved perennials might seem intimidating. You’re probably nervous that, as a first-time-transplanter, you’ll potentially mess up or injure your beautiful plants. No worries, though. We’ve got two decades of seasonal flowers transplant experience, and we’re here to offer you some helpful tips.
First, we suggest that you decide if your plant needs dividing before your transplant. Check out the perennials before you move then. Do they have a dead center? Are they growing healthily on the outside edges? If this is the case, it’s likely that you’re going to have to divide your plant to help deal with overcrowded and soil issues. For lots of perennials plants, dividing them first is as simple as cutting the crown of the plant into pieces and getting rid of the dead centers. Once you’ve checked that out, you’re ready to transplant.
Consider transplanting your plants on an overcast day, this way you can reduce the stress of sun and wind on the new transplants. Cooler temperatures, moisture in the soil and air, and a bit of cloud cover can do wonders for your new transplants.
Additionally, you’ll want to avoid transplanting any perennials that are mid-bloom. When a plant is blooming, it needs tons of water and nutrition for the energy its expanding — aka, this is a bad time to cut off its roots. Doing so could permanently damage your perennial!
Lastly, you’ll want to ensure you’re creating an ideal transplant environment for your perennial. This includes digging as deep as necessary to undercut the roots of other plants. Try to keep the integrity of your season flowers roots in tact while you transfer them, this way, they’ll have a better chance at survival! Water well, spread some mulch around the base, and monitor your plant progress!
Did you enjoy our quick-guide on transplanting perennials? We hope you found it helpful and that come fall, you’ll be a master at transplanting your beloved seasonal flowers. Looking to glean more insight? Want never-ending tips and tricks to help you create the best landscape, lawn, or garden area possible? Check out our Blog here for more information, insight, and advice. Or, give us a call for direct questions at (727)-201-3947.
Elizabeth Pelletier
