Plant Care Alert: Plants you should never divide

Plant division is a smart technique gardeners use to grow their plant collection. While it is a necessary step for plants that grow in clumps, not all plants can handle being divided. Learning this propagation technique is an interesting and cost-effective way to add more plants to your garden borders.

The process involves digging up the plants and separating them into smaller sections, which can be too disruptive for plants with tap roots. While many plants have a relatively high success rate when propagating by division, some aren’t like that.

These are the few plants NOT to divide:

Baby’s Breath

Baby’s breath is a beautiful, whimsical plant. Once the plants are established in your garden, they are difficult to divide due to their single, long taproot. Baby’s breath plants do much better when propagated by seed or cuttings.

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Lavender

While many gardeners may know how to grow lavender, it is important to remember that, like other woody shrubs and herbs, lavender plants do not respond well to being lifted, moved or divided. Once your lavender herb grows well and is established in your garden, the plant does not like to be disturbed.

Rosemary

Another herb that belongs on this list is rosemary. While it is hardy and tolerant of heat and drought, one thing these plants do not tolerate well is division. Rosemary forms a multi-stemmed woody shrub, making it challenging to access the centre of the plant for dividing.

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Spurge plants

Spurge plants are made up of a large group of plants, ranging from herbaceous perennials to cacti and woody shrubs. Many spurge varieties spread quickly, and you may be tempted to divide the plants; however, it is not recommended. Most herbaceous spurge produces a thick tap root and doesn’t like to be disturbed. If divided, the plant roots will not recover even with the best efforts.

Understanding which plants can be divided is crucial for successful propagation using division.

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