After too many months I got around to dealing with this overcrowded planter. First step was to soak it and extract it from the trough.

This is how it emerged – a sorry mess of constrained roots and tangled, straggly growth.

There are several plants in here, both of cottage pinks and a few tulips, but they’re terribly overcrowded and entangled. 

So I used two little forks to prise them apart.

This produced several separate clumps. A bit of serious snipping dealt with the straggly growth , cutting them right back to the newest growth near the base. This should stimulate new growth from the base of the plant, which is better than new growth at the end of a long twisted stem.

 I pulled away the twisted roots, teasing out newer roots from the plant.

Each plant clump goes into a bucket of water for a good soak before it’s planted out into a new home.

This little pot has produced three large clumps of dianthus (aka cottage pinks). They have a new home in the cut flower garden and likely to feature in a FromeBlooms bouquet very soon.