Red hot pokers

Ziminuk

Hi everyone. I put this thread on the wrong section earlier! I had left my very successful red hot poker plants over the winter with the leaves on. It looked a terrible mess but at least the crown were protected in this terrible north western weather. This afternoon I bit the bullet and cut all the foliage back to about a foot above the ground, It was my intention to split and move some of the plants as there are four of them with a 1.5 meter radius. I discarded two huge sack full of foliage (It was massively overgrown!) but now I am having a panic attack that I have done the wrong thing! I am quite inexperienced. Can anyone reassure me? Thank you. Ziminuk.

Dovefromabove

Don't panic!    You've done the right thing - in fact I'd have probably cut them lower than that, as long as I made sure I wasn't cutting any new growth.  

If they haven't started into new growth yet you can lift them and split them now 

Ziminuk

They did seem to have lots of new growth but I just chopped most of that off (oh dear I can feel the panic rising again!!!). I am not usually brave enough to be so brutal with plants! These red hot pokers were flowering beautifully last season and I am hoping they still will this summer. I think in my inexperience two years ago I put too many of these plants, too close together. In year two they are huge and realistically there is probably only enough room for one there. Maybe I could transplant the ones I dig up and put them elsewhere? I think it is the right time to do that?