2nd question, on a buried rhizome

all my medians are at the bottom of a slope. every spring I brush off any soil that slithered downhill overtop of the rhizomes.

Yesterday I discovered a fan coming up where I thought an IB had died. Digging down in softened clay soil, I discovered, and uncovered, a healthy rhizome off to one side of the fan. Probably the fan's mama. Couldn't feel a rhizome at the fan. its neighbors should bloom in a few weeks.

It's not unusual for the rhizomes so buried to still bloom. this fan looks too immature. maybe it just needs to be dug. To do any more digging where the clay is more solid means digging up the whole plant, roots and all, also disturbing its neighbors.

should I go ahead and dig it all up and replant it on the surface?
or leave it alone until after bloom season and then dig it?
I think this may be Ballycastle

[our red clay was originally heavily tilled and amended, but this clay looks like much of the amendments washed away]

Move it up so that the top of the rhizome gets the sun on its surface.

thanks will do. I'm just so scared of breaking the baby fan, I thought I'd ask first.

I would use a pitch fork to lift.

On Schreiner's web site they mention "old clumps may be thinned by removing the old divisions at the centers of the clumps and leaving new growth in the ground." I have tried this before using a very sharp knife and just cutting out the rhizome I want and leaving the rest in the ground and it has worked.

Yes, I have done that too.

this single rhizome was planted fall of 2007. there is no "clump" yet to cut up. Thought it died after blooming, from aphids. there's only one baby fan.

the reason I was hesitant to dig now is that it's in heavy red clay. Looks like all the organics washed away in that area. with rain, I could get a finger down in there to feel the mama lump, but couldn't get deep enough to feel the baby "foot." too solid hard

it's going to "take a pickax and split a chunk off" to get it out of there - no way to be gentle. so I am worried about breaking off the baby. pitchfork will bend before that clay gives. But we've had more rain now so I can take a turning fork (1" thick flat tines), maybe? This should work.