Can I divide New Zealand flax without killing it? When should I do it? My adult plant, about three years old, has two very healthy looking youngsters that I would like to move.
The best time to divide Phormium is spring, according to American Horticultural Society’s Plant Propagation (DK Publishing, 1999), but what you are describing are new offsets, so you will not be splitting the entire crown of the plant, but instead separating them from the parent plant. Wear gloves when working with Phormium. You may be able to use two garden forks to separate the youngsters from the parent.