Weedyseedy,
Did you just dig that plant up Sept. 12th of this year? You said it was completely dormant, so it was in summer dormancy? I have just been complaining about that in another thread. This caught my attention, and I am wondering if there is any connection between plants that experience summer dormancy and all the hairy (dead leaf) appearance. I am sort of wondering if all that dead leaf material contributes to the plants being so tight and hard to separate, or if the plant being so hard to separate contributes to the hairy looking appearance.
It seems reasonable that if a plant is root bound so to speak that the leaves might start dying off. I can see that if a plant experiences a summer dormancy if it is an (evergreen) it would have more dead leaf material than an evergreen that did not experience summer dormancy.
