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Dividing Perennial Plants
I also note that many perennials need dividing every 3-5 years or they'll stop blooming.
To begin with here's a rule of thumb about when to divide perennials.
If it blooms in the summer or fall, divide it in the early spring
As a followup to this, other than the very earliest of bloomers, most plants can be divided in the very early spring even a late spring bloomer.
How To
So how do you divide perennial plants?
Take a shovel. Put the point of the shovel about the middle of the plant; you'll have eyes or growing tips on both sides of the shovel. Try to keep the blade vertical so that as you push down, you'll split the plant equally from side to side with no angle to the blade.
Push down to split the plant. The odds are you'll have to push quite hard with some plants as the roots are dense and hard. Lever the one side out of the ground. Fill the hole you've just made with garden soil. Toss a shovel of compost right around the plant as an apology. You now have half a plant out of the ground.
Many Eyes
If the plant has several eyes, you can divide it further using the same technique or you can simply plant this clump intact into another spot in the garden.
With small original parent clumps, you might only get one or maybe two new plants from a division. With bigger older clumps, you can achieve significantly more plants from a division.
Useful Tip
Use a sharp shovel. You're cutting through a lot of hard roots.
Myths
It is a myth that you have to take the entire plant out of the ground to divide it. You can if you like but it is not necessary.
It is also a myth that you must use garden forks to pry divisions apart. Again, you can if you want to but that's too much like work for me. A sharp shovel works quite nicely when I divide perennial plants in my own garden.
Can I dig the plant and leave it out of the ground for a week - I'm moving?
Yes, you can if you keep it cool and slightly dampish. Don't put it in the sunshine or you'll find the root will dry out and die. Keep it shaded and cool to keep the plant growth slow (heat speeds up the growth). If spritzed with a hose once or twice a day and kept in the shade, it should be fine.
Lavender
Can I divide lavender?
No. Lavender is actually a woody plant, a shrub. And most of these don't divide.
Shrubs that do throw offshoots, like lilac (Syringa vulgaris) can be divided - the shoots dug up and cut away from the mother shrub - and replanted whenever the leaves are dormant. I tend to do the moving in late fall or very early spring when the plant isn't actively growing.
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