Replanting trees?

jamesf85

Hi all,

just wondering if anyone might have any idea on this.

A farmer who has land beside my home is about to start clearing some trees early next week. Some of these trees are absolutely beautiful and are around 5ft-10ft tall.

What I'm wondering is would it be possible to replant them in my own garden?

Thanks in advance for any advice

Best time to replant trees would really be between October and March or else they wont survive for long.

magicbastarder

you'd have to lift a rootball weighing probably (rough guess) 200KG+ with each tree in order to do it, especially in the current weather.

looksee

It would be pretty important to know what kind of trees they are. Transplanting anything in this weather would be risky though, to take out maybe 4 or 5 year old trees and transplant them is not likely to be all that successful.

If you do decide its worth the chance, find one with a good amount of soil, remove it to a container and give lots of water and trim back at least 50% of the leaves. Try and establish what kind of trees they are before you do it though.

GinSoaked

Basically totally the wrong time of year and even worse weather for trying it.

However if they can be lifted with by a digger with a digger bucket full of soil then you may get away with it provided you do a good bit of watering. Suggest the digger digs a hole first then goes and gets the tree so it can be dropped right in.

Only reason I suggest this is because a neighbor put a new house on a recently planted woodland plot and moved all the trees (100+) where the house was going that way and they nearly all survived. The trees now form a major part of the hedgerows around the fields. Timing was earlier in the year though.

stratowide

Did this last week with an apple and a plum tree.

Broke my heart to have to move them but there was no other way out of it.

Dug them out with a 13 ton digger with a big bucket and planted them straight away in their new holes.Took nearly all the roots with them too.
Watered them straight away.

The leaves are all withered and dead now.Will give them a little longer but am not optimistic about them surviving.

The sun was the problem.Killed them straight away.

Have done this before in winter time and worked well.

A real shame as I got the best of apples every year.

stratowide

stratowide wrote: »

Did this last week with an apple and a plum tree.

Broke my heart to have to move them but there was no other way out of it.

Dug them out with a 13 ton digger with a big bucket and planted them straight away in their new holes.Took nearly all the roots with them too.
Watered them straight away.

The leaves are all withered and dead now.Will give them a little longer but am not optimistic about them surviving.

The sun was the problem.Killed them straight away.

Have done this before in winter time and worked well.

A real shame as I got the best of apples every year.

Just an update on this.

Small but encouraging growth on the main branch of the apple tree.Should make a full recovery in time.Wont be getting apples anytime soon though.
The rest of the branches haven't recovered at all.

The plum tree has even better new shoots on the main branch.Again the rest of the branches are dead.

Could be a few years before both recover fully.

Really good to see new life though.

u2me

I had no option but to move one previously around this time of year and it turned out poorly, the tree never recovered. I left it for years hoping it would and while it did show some small signs of new growth each season on one branch, it never managed to re-established itself. I eventually ended up replacing it. If you could do it with a digger and take the majority of the root system and clay with it like suggested above you may have a better chance.