Wednesday, September 16, 2015

How to move shrubs to a better place in your landscape.

Q. I want to move some shrubs to a better place in my landscape. Can you give me some helpful hints?

A. You didn’t say how large the shrubs are, or the kind. I’ll assume they’re small enough for a couple of people to manage with hand tools. I’ll give some general instructions regarding kind.

If you’re in no hurry to move them, I suggest you root-prune them to develop a more concentrated mass of roots near the base of the shrubs. To do that, you only need to take a nursery spade and slice downward into the soil in a circle around each shrub. By slicing through roots, you will encourage roots to branch within the circle. A three-foot diameter should be sufficient. After slicing, leave the plants in place for a few months. Be sure to fertilize and irrigate your shrubs within the circles.

It’s best to move them from late fall to early spring when they are dormant, or at least when not in an active growth stage.

For specific instructions on digging and transplanting, it is best to refer you to instructional videos. Since I haven’t created any on the topic myself, take a look at this one on How To Ball and Burlap Dig A Tree. Following that, view How To Plant A Ball and Burlap Dug Tree.

I hope this helps.

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