Last week I bit the bullet and finally divided the Violetto artichoke plant, ending up with 5 "new" plants. My hope is that the original will produce larger artichokes and its severed brothers will survive to create progeny of their own. The recently transplanted plants are starting to perk up, no thanks to this gardener; I failed to give them B vitamins for transplant shock. They suffered for it, but life struggles to survive and all five are looking like they pulled through.

My hope is that a little top dressing with compost will help them thrive in their new locations. I deliberately placed 2 of them in a shadier spot to see how they do. It would be nice to make use of that spot and since these were "free" I'm willing to lose them to advance my gardening education.