How to Divide Chives: Splitting the Clump Before the Middle Dies Out

Why the middle of an old clump dies

A chive clump increases by the small bulbs at its base splitting into more bulbs, season after season. The clump expands outward from where it started, and the bulbs left in the center end up packed against each other with no room, no fresh soil and no light. By the third or fourth year the center is congested, woody and producing nothing while the outer ring is still growing well.

The visible symptom is a ring: healthy leaves around the edge and a bare, brown, slightly raised patch in the middle. That is not a disease and no amount of feeding fixes it. It is a clump that has outgrown its own space and needs taking apart.

1. Look for the ring shape In spring, when the new growth comes through, check whether leaves are emerging across the whole clump or only round the rim. A hollow center is the signal to divide that season.
2. Watch the leaf thickness Leaves getting thinner and shorter each year on a well-fed clump means overcrowding, not starvation. Division restores the size within one season.
3. Divide on a three-year cycle Do not wait for symptoms. Splitting every three years keeps every clump in its productive phase and gives you spare plants each time.

Container-grown chives congest faster than ground clumps because they run out of room sooner. Divide a potted clump every two years, or whenever roots start circling the pot.

How to lift and split a clump

Divide in early spring as the new shoots appear, or in early autumn once the summer heat has gone. Both windows give the divisions weeks of moderate weather to root before they are asked to do anything. Avoid dividing in high summer, when the pieces sit in hot dry soil with damaged roots and sulk for a month.

1. Water the day before A clump lifted from dry soil shatters and the roots tear. Soaking the ground the day before means the rootball holds together and comes out in one piece.
2. Lift with a fork, well outside the clump Push the fork in six inches (15 cm) beyond the edge and lever from several sides. Going in close slices through the outer bulbs, which are the best part of the clump.
3. Pull it apart by hand Shake the soil off and work the clump apart with your thumbs into pieces the size of a fist. Each piece should have eight to ten bulbs with roots. A dense old clump may need cutting through the crown with a knife.
4. Throw away the middle Discard the woody, bare center entirely. It looks like a lot of plant but it will not produce properly. Keep only the vigorous outer pieces.
5. Trim the tops Cut the leaves back to two inches (5 cm) on every division. With fewer leaves to support, the damaged roots re-establish far faster and the piece does not flop over.
6. Replant at the same depth Set each division so the white bases sit just below the surface, exactly as deep as they were. Firm the soil around them and water thoroughly.

Divisions look shocking for a fortnight, short stubs of leaf in bare soil. They are rooting. Keep them watered and they will be full-sized clumps by the end of the season.

How many plants you get, and what to do with them

One four-year-old clump splits into six to ten usable divisions, which is more chives than most households want. Plant three back in the original space, pot two up for the kitchen windowsill over winter, and give the rest away. Divisions transplant with a very high success rate, so there is no need to hold spares back as insurance.

Growing on divisions in pots

A division potted into a six inch (15 cm) pot of ordinary all-purpose potting mix makes a kitchen plant that carries you through the cold months. Chives need their winter chill before they will grow strongly again, though, so do not bring the pot straight indoors in autumn. Leave it outside until it has been frosted and has died back, then bring it into a cool bright room in midwinter, and it will push out fresh leaves within a fortnight.

1. Give each pot one division only The temptation is to cram three divisions in for an instant full pot. They congest within a season. One fist-sized piece fills a six inch pot properly.
2. Chill it before forcing Six to eight weeks below 40F (4C) satisfies the dormancy requirement. A pot brought in without that chill produces weak, pale growth and then stops.
3. Cut it hard once indoors Shear the pot to an inch (2.5 cm) when you bring it in. The forced regrowth is clean and even, rather than mixed with tired autumn leaves.

An indoor pot will not last forever. After two or three cuts, put it back outside in spring and let it recover in the ground for a season.

Seed and self-sowing as the other route

Division is the fast, reliable way to multiply chives, but seed works too and costs nothing if you let a few heads ripen. Seed-raised plants take two seasons to reach the size a division reaches in one, so use seed to start a new patch and division to keep the patch you have going.

Self-sown seedlings appear as fine grass around the parent the following spring. They are easy to miss and easy to hoe off. Lift a group of them together with a trowel while they are small, plant them as a cluster, and they behave exactly like a deliberate multi-sowing.

Keep a note of what you split and when

Write down the date each clump was planted or last divided, and where each division went. Three years is long enough that nobody remembers, and the whole point of a division cycle is knowing which clump is due. A simple list of positions with a year against each is enough to keep every clump in its productive phase indefinitely.

It is also worth noting how a division performed: whether it was full-sized by the end of the first season or took two. That tells you whether your divisions are big enough. Pieces that take two seasons to fill out were split too small.