Is it too early to transplant perennials?
That all depends on what the weather has in store for us. As I write, it's hot, sunny, and dry outside my window and those conditions are about as far from ideal as they can possibly be. However, if you wait a few days, autumn could arrive with a bang, bringing with it the cool temperatures and moisture that are ideal for moving plants around in your garden.
Transplanting is incredibly hard on plants. Just imagine yourself happily growing away in your familiar clump of earth when from nowhere someone arrives armed with a shovel and severs your roots for the sole purpose of dragging you to the other end of the garden - or worse - to the other end of town. Plants find this to be a rather stressful process and one for which nature didn’t prepare them.
As gardeners, our job is to inflict as little stress on our plants as possible. Ideally, this means waiting to transplant until the daytime highs chill down a few more degrees. For the best results, try to undertake any transplanting early in the morning or on the evening of a rainy day. This practice isn’t much fun for the gardener, but the plant will show its appreciation by not flopping down dead the minute you turn your back.
As a general rule, you want to put off transplanting perennials until after they’ve finished flowering for the season. This means that any of your autumn blooming perennials should be left until spring unless you’re willing to forgo this year’s flowers. It’s hard enough finding plants that bloom this time of year, so sacrificing a year’s blooms by unceremoniously uprooting a perennial just as it’s about to burst into full glory seems a bit harsh for both the gardener and the plant.
As with the perennials you transplant in the spring, you need to make sure that your autumn transplants receive a steady supply of water in the weeks following their move. Don't fertilize any plants you move in the fall. If a plant produces new growth too late in the season, it can easily be damaged when the cold weather arrives and injuring a plant as it goes into winter is not the best way to ensure its healthy return next year.
Having said all that, you wouldn’t be the first gardener to jump the gun. Sometimes this happens for practical reasons, such as moving to a new home, and sometimes it’s because an uncontrollable botanical urge overtakes logic. Whatever the reason, make sure you keep your transplants well-watered and cross your fingers. It’s the best insurance policy I know of.
If you have any questions or comments, please send them to me at vanessa@gardenmuse.ca.
