All gardeners needs good tools, and I have 2 of my favorite tools that I like to work with. One is a garden spade. It's got a very sharp flat edge to it, which is very good for going straight down making good cuts. This rounded type shovel here is also good for scooping and getting underneath the roots. To start this procedure, what I'm going to do is take my flat spade and I'm going to just shave away this excess mulch around the front of this rudbeckia here. The next step is you never know how far out the roots are actually growing, so I want to give a good 3-4 inches away from this plant before I make a cut. With my heel and the ball of my foot I'm just going to push down and wiggle the soil back and forth. I'm just going to make several cuts around the front of this plant like so. Now, I have this other little lavender plant that's relatively close by. I'm going to be very careful to try not to disturb that one too much. Now, I'm going to come along and I'm going to do a little side cut. I'm going to cut this part that's further away from the plant back and away. I'm slowly shaping the clump. Now, because this particular perennial is so large, I'm going to have to take my straight edge spade and actually do a little division right now by making a cut along the back half of this plant. I'm just going to follow the line where I had already cut the leaves back. I'm just going to go right down a sharp incision there. I rock it just a little bit with my spade as I go to help free it up a little bit. You can see that it's already starting to move. I'm going to have to take a little bit more off the top here to get down. I'm going to need to switch to my other shovel so I can actually start doing a little under cut.
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