I sure wish I knew what to tell you to do on your Beckies, but I don't. I have a one spot of them that I also got from Skybird. I think it was 3 years ago. It has grown from a tiny little thing to about a foot wide. It's not as big as yours, but it's just beautiful and I want more. I was thinking about trying to pull a few of the babies from the outside. Anyone want to estimate my success at that? Should I dig the whole clump, remove a few and then replant it, or just try to pick a couple off the side without disturbing the main group? I want to keep most of it together, just want a couple little babies to get growing. The picture is from last year. The clump is about a third bigger this year.

I'm sorry to piggyback on your post. Since it is the same subject, I hope you don't mind Sugaralice. Your retaining wall looks great. Sorry you missed the swap. I agree what spring we had, sure did go fast. Hopefully you can make it to the fall swap. I'm sure going to try this year. I have never been to one of the fall gatherings.

Thanks for any advice you Becky experts!
~Cat

Sugaralice,

I was going to email you, but you don't have that option selected. Skybird will probably chime in soon and give you the skinny on proper division techniques. I've only divided ajuga and iris.

Until you hear from her, I think I'd cut that foliage back low, maybe an inch above the crown so the wilty baby isn't trying to pump water back into those leaves. It'll take a little bit to grow back, but should come back. Don't overwater it, tempting I know. I hope this helps.

You have been busy and your place is looking great!

Barb

Hi guys,

I've been out trippin'! Got back last nite a little before 9:00. I'm still kinda brain-dead after driving almost 3,000 miles but let me see if I can come up with a coherent reply so I don't forget to do it later!

No fear, Sugar, you didn't kill anything! Sure can't prove it by today--it's 49 degrees in my yard, raining, and so dark and dreary I have a light on inside!--but apparently it was hot and dry and windy while I was gone, so if you haven't already cut it down like Barb recommended, do it now! Half inch or up to an inch above the soil. Without the foliage the roots will have time to get their bearings in their new digs--pun intended! (Also--what Barb says about overwatering! Plants with no foliage use VERY little water! Water only when the soil is about "half" dry. Too little water won't do serious damage--too much water WILL!)

From what you posted you did everything right if you wanted to dig and divide the whole clump! As you found out, it's almost impossible to dig into the middle of it! Easiest to do is to dig the whole thing, cut/break off newer plantlets from around the outside of the clump, and then throw away the old woody stuff in the middle.

Cat, you're right too! If the overall plant is still looking good you can get new plants by just removing the new shoots that are growing out from the sides of the main plant. That's how I usually get the starts for the plants I bring to the swaps! If you look closely you'll see that the new shoots grow laterally a little bit, rooting as they grow, before they grow "up" to form a new stem. They grow very close to the surface and you can go around the edges and just carefully pull some of the shoots off, or "follow" them back a little way toward the main plant and cut them off wherever they're coming off of a bigger root. They will almost always already have at least some roots on them--if they don't you can still root them very easily, but if they don't have any roots I recommend rooting them in a small pot where you can control the conditions before you plant them back in the garden.

Shastas, like many perennials, form new growth around the outside of the plant and start to die out in the middle after a few years, and the easiest way to get them looking good again is to dig the whole clump and replant some of the younger plantlets. I did that with mine in '09 and I "documented" the process for "future reference" in case somebody ever wanted to know how to do it, so I'll post the pics so you can see what I did! This same process would work for almost any of the perennials that start to turn woody and die out in the center.

Shasta Daisy Renovation Project!

I believe the captions are visible to anyone who clicks on the pics, but I'll post them here with the pics just in case I'm wrong! But clicking on the pics will get you a bigger version of the pic so you can more easily see what's going on. [Edited to add this: If there's something you REALLY want to see up close, first click on the pic to get to the WebAlbums page and then click on the little magnifying glass, top right corner of the pic, and when the pic comes up you can use the little slider on the bottom (or scroll) to see it up-close-and-personal! Click and drag to see different parts of the magnified pic!]

This was the plant in 2007, about 3 years old and still looking pretty good! When I did my "renovation" I dug up most of the clump but left the younger parts of the plant that were growing right up to the fence in the ground. This was in early May and the weather was still cool and cloudy enough that I did not cut the replanted plantlets down to the ground like I recommend you do because of the warmer conditions!

Shasta Daisy - Chrysanthemum maximum 'Becky' - 07.12.07

Shasta Daisy renovation project - In the beginning! - 05.04.09

Shasta Daisy renovation project - Lots of plantlets for Spring Swap! - 05.04.09

Shasta Daisy renovation project - Hole filled in with soil and plantlets on left to be planted in front! - 05.04.09

Shasta Daisy renovation project - After planting some small plantlets in front of remaining existing plant and mulching --- 05.04.09

Shasta Daisy Renovation project - 20 days after completion! - 05.24.09

Shasta Daisy 'Becky' starting to bloom after having been divided and replanted on 05.04.09. - 07.04.09

My plant is once again starting to die out in the center--and growing out all the way into the grass--but it is definitely not going to get redone this year! Probably next year!

If you have any questions, let me know,
Skybird

P.S. For those of you wondering how to EASILY post pics, I very highly recommend using Picasa and Picasa WebAlbums! You don't ever need to mess with HTML code! You just select the size you want to post--thumbnail, small, medium, large--with or without it being clickable, and with or without the entire "album link," and then copy the pre-formatted link that's there for you! So easy even I can do it!!!

This post was edited by skybird on Wed, May 29, 13 at 13:39

Thanks Skybird! I will see if I can pull off a couple babies here in a few minutes. It's a nice cool day, and everything is wet. I've been weeding and transplanting, now I'm on a short break. I was wondering, what is that dark red plant in the last picture? I would love a start of it someday if it ever has babies!
~Cat

Hi Cat,

I'm in on a break too! I left shortly after The Big Freeze, and after being gone for 2 1/2 weeks I was shocked to see I came home to a garden absolutely exploding with growth and color! It's a joy to be out in the dirt again! The rain stopped, the sun came out, and, like you said, it's really nice out right now!

About that plant! Oh, how I'd love to get some seed off of it! All it is is plain old Sweet William, Dianthus barbatus. I started some from seed shortly after I moved in here--one of my favorite flowers, and two of them were that deep, deep red color! I hope every year to get seed--they're usually VERY easy to get seed off of, but on those two the flowers always seem to kind of close in on themselves, I think before they even get pollinated--at least even when I've opened up the base of the dried flowers looking for seed, I can't find any! Sweet Williams are normally considered to be biennials, only living two years, but I've managed, thru judicial cutting back, to keep those two alive for about 5 years I think, maybe 6. The one is looking really good and I'm gonna do my best to get some seed again this year, if I do I'll try to remember you want some! But there is one caveat! I have other colors of Sweet Williams and they cross, so there's always the possibility that even if I do manage to get seed they could turn out to be something besides that very deep red!

If you want to play what I recommend is to get a package of the tall Sweet William seed and plant a bunch of it. When they start to grow and get a couple sets of true leaves pick the ones with the darkest foliage and plant them in the yard. With Sweet Williams (and some other things) the plants with the darker foliage will have the darker color flowers! You just might be lucky enough to get some that are at least close to that color! And even if you don't, they're wonderful flowers to have--in all the colors! They're heavenly spice scented and they make great cut flowers! If you do start seed and get a color you really like get back to me later about trying to keep it/them going for more than 2 years!

Skybird

P.S. If your 'Becky' is very tall and in a lot of sun you might need to cut yours down too when you transplant it. It's supposed to be cooler for the next few days so it might be ok without cutting, but with a lot of foliage if it gets very hot it might get all wilty like Sugar's. The other thing you can do with the kind of shoots you're gonna get is to pull off all but the couple smallest center leaves before you replant it. That way the small roots won't need to support too much foliage even if it is in a lot of sun. (Mine is next to my west fence so it gets shade from the afternoon sun.

Thanks so much Barb and Skybird for swooping in. I cut a few down in the clump and some individual like Barb suggested and experimented and took the lower leaves of some of the individual and left a couple of leafs at the top. Paranoid that I was I also potted up several individuals for insurance and been watching them like a hawk. I now have 3 clumps in different areas - 2 in my newly almost "finished" retaining wall bed. Those are still looking awfully wilty but the ones in the original bed have somewhat recovered so I think I will cut down the ones in the retaining wall down completely. I think they also suffered and got terribly whipped by the wind the last couple of days.

Cat - no worries about joining in the conversation - the more the merrier and maybe this would be a lesson learned for me and good info for others. I had gotten these shasta starts from my first Spring swap in 2011 and silly me had planted 3 together I think about 6 inches apart in a triangle and they grew into an enormous stunning ball!
Pic is from last summer

No wonder I had to divide them already or maybe I could have done it next year and could have a gargantuan ball this summer. Oh well...I was worried that I found a lot of rot in the balding center although it eventually did leaf out but they looked weak. Any way, I was glad I did divide them as I was prying out the clumps from the the dense center, I found a haven of pill bugs and earwigs nesting in the center woody clump - eeeekkk! Thanks so much everyone. As much reading as one can do, it's nothing like putting it into practice and asking for advice helps soooo much. Additionally I got brave this evening and dug up my ornamental oregano as the center is now bald so i figured it needed to be divided.