Moving small trees.....

[Dennis_Peacock]

Just wondering about digging up and moving small trees to relocate them to my yard instead of the fence-row. When is it safe to move trees that are under 5 feet tall? We have several trees along one of our fence rows and we'd like to move them into our yard for shade and water control.

Advice? Pointers?

 

[Adkpk]

Now is a good time. If your not in a drought. The more water they have the better off they'll be.

 

[ClimbinArbor]

52 Pines To Transplant Help.........

I was actually about to post a thread for this.

I have 52 1' to 3' pines to move 30 miles or so. What is a good rule of thumb for a rootball diameter ratio, to say trunk diameter or tree height. or any formula similar so that i can put a good ball on the tree.

thx for the help.

 

[Dennis_Peacock]

From what I've read it's

9" diameter of dirt for every 1" of trunk diameter.

1" trunk = at least 9" of rootball diameter
3" trunk - at least 27" of rootball diameter

I could be wrong, but that's what I've read in my books and have used that rule successfully.

 

[ClimbinArbor]

+1

i was ctually gonna go with 10. so i bet were both good!

thx dennis

 

[Adkpk]

To save you guys from the tape measure. Try just inside the drip line. Most trees grow roots to just outside the drip line (branch spread) So if you cut the roots just inside you haven't taken to much and left enough to keep the dirt intact around the ball.

 

[ClimbinArbor]

me and my old man used to transplant dogwoods, and thats what he says. but i wonder if that would be good for these pines..... most of the are very skinny..... i think its probably about the same though.

thx guys

 

[Adkpk]

You got nothin to worry bout climbin. I would bare root those suckas rap em up in some plastic, make sure they stay wet and get em right back in the ground.

 

[ClimbinArbor]

yeah im gonna ball and burlap then plant half of em in one day then do the other half on the next day i think. that way there only out of the ground for a few hours. I shouldnt have to water them at all for that i think....???? im gonna mulch them too and tell the customer to water them a little bit every couple of weeks this summer....

 

[Dennis_Peacock]

Well, I'll step out here and tell ya what the LOML and I did earlier this year.

We dug up and moved a tree that was about 3" at the trunk. While digging it up, the tree came up without any dirt. The ground was very well where the tree was and also where we moved it to. I staked it off and secured it with a couple of small ropes and I checked it today and it has green leaves all over that thing.
It is nice to see that we moved a tree that was about 8 feet tall with zero dirt on the rootball and it still survive the move.