I'm dividing my Asiatic lilies, do I chop all the roots off?

Woah! That is a lot of roots!

Is the lily dormant? I would carefully dig through that mess and look for bulbs. You can tell how many you will find by the number of stems you had. Be carefull not to damage them.

It could be that once you get through the outside layer of roots, you will find the center of the 'root ball' relatively root free.

If they are asiatic lilies, the bulbs will something like these:






Roots growing from the stem above the bulb(s) can be discarded. They will die in the fall if they haven't already.
The roots originating from the bottom of the bulb(s) are fairly permanent. You will want to keeps as much of these intact as possible. But don't be too concerned because it's not critical. Even if all the roots were removed, the lily would still easily survive.

I moved some Red Alert (Longiflorum Asiatic) into a mixed garden today. They have already started new sprouts for next Spring. Keep in mind these new sprouts are very tender and break easily if you are moving Asiatic or Longiflorum Asiatic bulbs around at this late date. Also be careful where you step so to avoid damage to established bulbs already in the ground. These sprouts will stop growing as soon as the soil temperature drops to near freezing. And it won't hurt them even if the soil does freeze a little around them.


My first casualty of the season-that crunching sound

I had dug some Lankon bulbs about 3 weeks ago. They looked like that, too. Some I had not replanted and they sat in a partially open plastic bag, where they were exposed to light. Some of the small bulblets started to grow green leaves.

Many other types of bulbs, like tulips, daffodils and fritillaria will "pre-sprout" like that as a rule.