How to Transplant a Tree

How to Successfully Transplant a Tree

One important aspect of gardening is tree planting. You would have to learn how to transplant a tree successfully, whether you are growing fruits, vegetables, or flowering plants.
There are many reasons why you may want to move a tree. It could be that your garden is overcrowded and you need to create more room. You could also be taking young plants from the nursery to the field when they mature. Tree planting can be a bit tricky, and you want to ensure you make the necessary steps to get the job done.
Below are some crucial factors to consider when tree planting.

When to Move Trees
As with planting seeds, there are particular times around the year when you should move a tree. The best time to transplant a tree is when the ground conditions are right to support growth.
It would help if you avoided the heat and the cold of summer and winter weather. Early fall and spring are excellent for promoting healthy plant growth. So you want to note this down in your gardening calendar.



How to Transplant Trees
Just like every other art, there are techniques for transplanting. I have broken them down in steps so you can easily understand.

Preparation
1. The first thing you should do is to prepare the hole for the tree. It would help if you did this before cutting down the tree. The diameter of the hole should be three times that of the root ball. When digging, separate the subsoil from the topsoil so you won't disperse the nutrient bed.
2. Tie up the branches to secure them so they don't get destroyed during moving.
3. Please take note of the north side of the tree so that you can plant it properly in the right place where moss can grow.

Planting
1. After preparing the hole for planting, you want to uproot the plant you want to move. There are simple tips to help you safely dig up a tree. You want to be careful not to damage the roots during this process.
2. After digging out the tree, shake a little soil off it to reduce the weight. That is if you find it challenging to move to the new hole.
3. Place the tree in the new hole and ensure it aligns with the surrounding soil line. Planting too deep could lead to rotting of the roots and even falling off the tree.
4. The next step is to fill in the subsoil that you dug out initially. After this, add in the topsoil. Ensure you stamp out with your feet as you fill and add in water to eliminate air pockets.
5. You should water regularly over the next three weeks to promote moisture retention on the soil. You want to be careful not to overdo it.

Final Note
If you are a beginner and are just new to gardening, it may be a challenge for you to move a tree. You can, however, seek the assistance of an arborist to help with transplanting a tree.

What if you go out and dig trees up from the woods. It depends, what kind is it? How big is it? How heavy will it be and how far do you have to carry it? DID, you prepare the planting hole BEFORE you went to get it? If not start over. Also find your trees in the fall while they still have leaves and tag them to go back after dormancy.

Some examples shown in the picture are Oak and Sugar Maple. The one in foreground is Oak as are the red ones behind, they yellow is maple and in the far background is Dawn Redwood. The Dawn Redwood was a bare root seedling the others were 5 - 7 foot saplings I found in the woods. Now they are 15 - 20 feet.  The larger green one to the right is Pecan, a squirrel planted it. Now on the oak and maple here is a contrast in transplanting. Maple has a spread out root system, no large roots going down deep. They are easy to just pluck out a root ball, following common guidelines on how big it should be. Keep in mind if the tree is six feet tall the root ball will be heavy. Eastern red Cedar, Redbud and lots of others are similar.

Now on Oak, Walnut and others with a large tap root it is more important to get it as completely and as undamaged as possible. An intact root ball is less important than getting the whole root. To do this on a six or seven foot Oak it might be necessary to dig a trench a couple feet deep all the way around the tree and then treat the trench bottom as if it was the ground around a maple tree. In other words dig and then dig some more. You might end up as in the case of those in the pictures having a six foot bare root tree with another 3 1/2 feet of root. So yes your planting hole has to be 3 1/2 feet deep. Potted or root balled tap root trees can be successfully planted but they will take longer to acclimate and resume growth.

My goal with transplanting a tree is that it doesn't even know it was moved.  I went to that trouble in the case of these trees because the Emerald Ash borers killed all my shade trees and I didn't want to wait for ever for little trees to grow, plus I'm cheap and didn't want to pay for trees that might not live.  I've never tackled one as big as in the picture, reckon you'd need big equipment for that.
 

my experience has been planting bare root trees, they arrive from growers during dormancy, usually December thru march. ive tried two techniques, the first is to dig a hole and hold tree so that it will be as deep in the ground as it was before it was dug up and fill in soil packing lightly as I fill hole with soil and making a water retention ring of soil at edge of hole and flooding with water after planting. the second technique is to use a dibble bar. pushing bar in ground as far as blade will go and pushing soil aside creating a hole to slide tree roots into. push dibble bar in ground a few inches from where tree is planted and pushing soil towards tree to fill hole then stomping soil down with foot to close up second hole. both techniques done in late fall to early spring during dormancy. Ive had good luck with both techniques with probably 95%+ survival rate.

I have dug up and planted out thousands of oak trees over the last 7/8 years and find that as long as you get a decent football you don't have to be too careful.

The key is pruning hard once you have replanted it to enable the roots to develope before the huge demand comes from all the new leaves.

Bigger the tree= harder the prune

I can only comment on Oaks/crab apple/plums/pears/cherry.