[missmoneypenny]

My patch is 5 years old and productivity has plummeted. It is also infested with bindweed. I need to dig up the old plants and would like to move it to another spot using runners. What's the best time of year to do this? Is it always successful or am I actually  better off heading to the garden centre and buying new plants. thanks for any advice.

[aelf]

as runners appear, they sprout new plants, sometimes 2 or three to a runner. Peg each plant down into a pot of compost (or soil, they are not fussy)  using a short piece of wire bent over to make a hook. Don't cut the runner.

Leave it like this until the baby plants are properly rooted into the pot (say, 2 months), then you can cut the runners and remove the plants and pot them on. They won't produce much fruit in the first year but should in the second.

It's worth potting some on each year so that you have a rotation of new plants to replace the old.

[missmoneypenny]

Thanks aelf   that's really useful. Can you do it at any time of year, or are some months more likely to be successful?

[snowdrops]

It's  usually considered best to just take the first plantlet from each runner as that's the strongest one if there are plenty of runners, if not you could take the next  one as you are going to discard the parent plant.