"Brooklyn1" Gravesend1 wrote in message
...
" wrote:

We have a pot bound Gerbera daisy. It seemed to have 3 separate
crowns over the summer. Now, there are at least 6 distinct crowns,
and the root area is a solid tangle of roots. I could just slice
thru
the crowns and roots to divide the plant, or hopefully learn somthing
here as a better way to divide the plant up. We liv in the Chicago
area and will use growing lights over the winter to keep the plants
healthy.

Help!!!

For Chicago it's probably a little too late for dividing daisys,
better to wait until early spring. Right now remove the plant from
the pot and heel it into the ground and place a few inches of mulch
around. Once it leafs out in spring dig it up and carefully separate
the crowns by hand and plant them wherever. If you separate them now
they'll probably not establish a healthy root system before the ground
freezes. For me daisys are the one plant that doesn't belong caged in
a pot, daisys need to be free, plant them in the ground. And the
critters don't eat daisys.
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I think if you do this you'll lose them. They're tropical and it just gets
too cold, at least here in southern Wi. Probably Chicago isn't much better,
despite global warming causing the winters to be less severe.

Most people around here just let them freeze and buy new ones every year.
But this will be the third year of overwintering gerbers in my sun room.
It's great having a bit of color mid winter. I just potted them up last
week and they're looking good. The first summer I stuck pots and all in the
ground, but this year I put them in the ground last spring and dug them up
last week. A couple do indeed now have multiple crowns but I didn't try
dividing them. Just got a bigger pot. But if you really want to divide them
slicing sounds like it should work. I've noticed moving them in and out of
pots that the root systems seem pretty tough.

I do the same with my cape daisies and have cut them when repotting. They
bloom especially well in winter cause they seem to like the sun room's
bright days and cool nights. They don't like the hot summer and quit
blooming in July. Also potted a couple of them up last week and they're
blooming nicely again now it's fall.
good luck