chalyse said:I had not realized that cutting back foliage would help save watering - I wonder if that is true of established plants, too? :
I wouldn't recommend it since the plant makes its food with its foliage (photosynthesis) so if you reduce the foliage you reduce its food manufacturing capability. I wasn't thinking in terms of saving watering but that when you transplant bare root there will always be some root damage/loss. That means that the remaining roots are trying to supply enough water for the original amount of foliage. If you reduce the foliage then the remaining roots can keep up with the lowered demand for water from the leaves (transpiration). So in that circumstance water trumps food because an inability of the roots to supply enough water is more likely to be life threatening.
When people sell daylilies "dug on demand" that have scapes, cutting back the foliage makes it more likely that the scape will survive and flower. I tried it myself one summer when I had to move clumps that were putting up scapes. On some the leaves were cut back and the scapes not, on the others nothing was cut back. On the first ones the plants went on to flower, on the ones where the leaves and scapes were left intact the scapes died without flowering and much of the foliage died back also.
