moving a tree, difficulty, cost, etc..

donegaLroad

Hi, I have 2 Italian Alders planted at the side of the garden. Their trunks are approx 5" in diameter, height would be approx 30'.

Would it be a big job to transplant either or both of these trees to a different section of the garden?

thanks

looksee

I have no experience with Italian Alders, but at 30 ft and a 5inch trunk on a medium sized tree, that is pretty much full size. I would not like to offer any guarantees of success in moving it, I think it would be a pretty major job that is going to make a good bit of mess in your garden.

If you did not want to go to the expense of getting professionals to do the job - which they may not be prepared to do - you would, I think, at least need use of a jcb for a day to dig up the tree with a large rootball to get as much of the root as possible. Even if you successfully moved it, and stabilised it with guy lines there is no guarantee it would grow.

Do you want to remove the tree(s) from where they are, or do you want a tree in a different place? I think it would be much cheaper in the long run to cut down one of the trees (if you need to clear the space) then buy a well grown container tree and have it planted by the supplier.

arthur daly

There is a few places that do pretty decent sized trees it will be cheaper to buy them plus they are more likely to live and are sowed in channelss and undercut by a special machine.
Gettin the machine will cost big bucks,a mini digger would be a option but will still need a fair bit of shovel work and long trailer.

blackbox

I've seen machines that can move trees, but they would normally only be used somewhere like a golf course. They scoop out a hemisphere of soil along with the roots and tree about 3 meters or more in diameter. They are very big and would need lots of space for access. I've no idea if any contractor in Ireland can do this.

As Arthur Daly says, you would probably be better off purchasing a reasonably large replacement for both reliability and cost.

Oldtree

within 10 years a small plant will outpreform a large one, never mind the aftercare a large one would need in the interim.

Melodeon

Drew Haslam from near Birr does this sort of thing, I'd suspect it's not cheap though:
http://www.drewhaslam.com/#!tree-moving/c13ok