Time to Move the Rhubarb

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Two weeks ago my gardening buddy and Horticulture Magazine podcaster Andy Keys became the proud owner of an heirloom rhubarb plant. My rhubarb plant, to be specific.

Just Veggie readers will know that I have two rhubarb plants, winnowed down from four that I planted in the garden about five years ago. They are both monster plants, growing to I’d say close to 3 feet tall during the summer. Both plants have enormous, almost elephant ear-like leaves that shade everything growing around them.

It’s inevitable each spring that I plant some poor sucker too close to the monsters. At the end of last season, I discovered several lackluster pepper plants hidden under rhubarb foliage. And a lavender plant ends up misshapen each year, its branches leaning waaaaay over in an attempt to run away. And more importantly to me, the leaves of one rhubarb cut off a much used pathway by early summer. Not to mention, the rhubarb’s roots are causing the path’s bricks to buckle.

It’s gotta go.

Moving monster rhubarb

I was able to pawn it off, er, I mean I found someone who was game. Up to this point he’s been strictly a perennials gardener. Yes, rhubarb is an edible (fruit? vegetable?), but its a perennial, too. Luckily, Andy lives in the suburbs and has space enough to let it loose in a border. In my garden plot, the rhubarb has gotten full sun, minimal care (I didn’t want to encourage it!) and sat atop 30 years of accumulating composted soil. From what Andy says, the plant will have to adjust to a shady, dry area. That’s right, keep the monster caged.

Now is the time of year to move the rhubarb. It’s just started to awaken from winter, its little rounded ruby-red heads just poking through the soil.

While it’s still somewhat dormant, the rhubarb is definitely easier to move now. We each took a side and shoved our shovels around the outside of the plant, about 4 inches from what looked like the extent of the rhubarb’s crown. The rootball ended up being about 18 inches in diameter. Seeing the mass of it, Andy refused to take it all. We sliced off about a third of the ball and can you believe it? I replanted it close by. This time I took care to center it in a spot where it wouldn’t obstruct the path and other growing sections I have mapped out in my mind.

But that rhubarb has bull’s blood in it. Will the monster return?

Meet Ellen Wells

When you’re raised on a farm, you can’t help but know a thing or two about gardening. Ellen Wells is our expert on edible gardening.…

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