Garden Plants on the Move (Moving Trees & Shrubs)

Autumn in the garden is a good time to prepare for relocating shrubs or trees that would look or grow better in a different location.

If the thought of moving a shrub or tree troubles you, recognize that even good plants need not be permanent. Here are some reasons for moving a healthy shrub or tree.

  • The tree or shrub has grown so large it’s crowding a walkway or other plants.
  • Other nearby plants have grown so large that they are shading a plant that needs sun.
  • Other nearby plants are now gone, exposing a plant that needs shade.
  • The tree or shrub is needed elsewhere in the landscape.
  • The gardener wishes to install a new feature, and the tree or shrub is in the way.
  • The gardener has wishes to establish a thematic plant bed where an off-theme tree or shrub is growing.

When preparing to relocate a plant, first decide on where it will go. Examine the new location to ensure that it is the right place for this particular plant. Confirm that the soil is suitable, the drainage is good, and the exposure it right for the plant. Finally, make certain that the new spot could accommodate the plant when it is fully grown. Then, dig a hole twice the width of the intended root ball.

Ideally, prune the roots to protect against transplant shock. This involves digging a trench around the plant, outside the intended root ball, refilling the trench and watering to settle the soil. Root-prune in March for plants to be moved in October, and in October for plants to be moved in March.

Then, plan how to move the plant, taking its size into consideration.

Small Shrubs and Trees

For a shrub less than three feet tall, or a tree with a trunk is less than one inch wide, you could move it bareroot, i.e., without digging up a root ball. To move such a smaller plant bareroot, dig a trench around it, cutting the longer roots, wash the soil off the lateral roots, and use a flat shovel to remove the soil under the plant. Keep the roots moist until you are ready to transplant.

Not-so-small Shrubs and Trees

If you are preparing to move a plant that is between three and five feet high, decide how large a root ball to provide. For industry standards for transplanting different plants of various sizes, visit the website, americanhort.org and search for “root ball.” For example, moving a five-foot tree or shrub requires an eighteen-inch wide root ball. A root ball of that size could weigh 250 pounds, so plan for the appropriate equipment and helpers.

Larger Shrubs and Trees

Most gardeners will hire a tree service to move a tree or shrub that is larger than five feet high. If you prefer to do such work yourself, I will say “best wishes,” and predict that you will have professionals do your next transplant.

Really Large Trees

Even very large trees—up to forty-five feet high—can be moved successfully, if not cheaply. The widely available tree spade uses an array of large shovels to dig a conical divot to pluck a plant from the ground, and deposit it in a matching hole. For video clips of tree spades in various sizes, browse to YouTube.com and search for “tree spade.” To see an interesting DIY device, search YouTube for “Tree Toad 24 inch Tree Transplanter.”

Tree Spade

A mechanized tree spade makes transplanting large bushes and small or medium trees a much easier proposition. Photo: Dutchman Industries

 

A newer technology for moving larger plants is the “air tool,” which uses compressed air to blow soil away from a tree’s roots. This bareroot method avoids pruning or breaking the roots, so the plant experiences little trauma and quickly resumes its usual growth cycle. To see a brief video demo of the air tool, visit growingwisdom.com, click on “Trees & Shrubs” and scroll to the link, “How to Move Large Trees Using an Air Tool.”

After moving a tree or shrub, transplanting herbaceous perennials is easy!

Back to the Future Garden (Bulbs)

An important aspect of the art of gardening is working backwards, so let’s begin today by visualizing a stunning display of spring bulbs in your garden next April.

“Bulbs” include all plants that grow from bulbs, tubers, corms, or rhizomes. Plants with underground storage organs are correctly referred to as “geophytes.”

There are a great many plants in this category, with a stunning range of colors and forms. The large majority of geophytes are native to the world’s Mediterranean climate regions, which includes coastal California; they have evolved to thrive in climates like that of the Monterey Bay area.

For your spring vision to become real, you will need to plant your bulbs this year, in the early fall. You could plant as early as August, or as late as November, but a good time to target is September.

To have bulbs to plant in September, order them in July or August. You could buy bulbs later at a local garden center, but retailers necessarily stock mostly the very popular varieties.  Ordering by mail will let you choose from an enormous range of possibilities, and early orders are most likely to secure the largest, most productive bulbs.

If you acquire your bulbs before you are ready to plant, store them in a dry, well-ventilated place.

Before you buy bulbs, you should have a plan for planting. The easy part of planning for a display of spring bulbs is to identify space in your garden that receives—ideally—at least six hours of sunlight daily, and that drains well (no puddles!). There are also a good number of bulbs that will do quite well in partial shade, but if you intend to plant in a shadier area, select bulbs with that condition in mind.

Bulbs also can be grown successfully in containers, given sufficient sun exposure and very well-drained soil. Typical planting mixes are fine, but should be amended with horticultural sand, pumice, crushed lava rock, or other material to promote drainage.

Your design could mass your bulbs for a large display of one or several varieties, or place several small cluster displays among other plants in the landscape. The scale of your display will guide your decision on the number of bulbs to order. Growers usually recommend spacing for specific plants, but three times the width of bulb is generally OK. Wider spacing will provide room for increases.

The more popular species of bulbs that do not require winter chill to perform well include Daffodil, Crocus, Grape Hyacinth, Allium, Crown Imperial and Snowdrop (Galanthus). Others bloom their best after several days of chill: Tulip, Hyacinth, Siberian Squill, Anemone, Freesia (but some varieties will do fine without special handling).

Spring Bulbs

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 Good mail-order catalogs indicate which bulbs will grow well in Zone 9, which includes the Monterey Bay area, and offer pre-chilled bulbs.

To benefit from the full range of mail-order options, select some so-called “minor bulbs,” i.e., those not included among the most familiar species. Adventuresome gardeners leave the beaten path to discover the most interesting blossoms.

Yellow Foxtail Lily

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Caption: The Yellow Foxtail Lily (Eremurus stenophyllus) grows 4-5 feet high, with hundreds of star-shaped flowers. Photo: Brecks.com online catalog.

Good preparation of the planting area(s) involves removing weeds, loosening the soil, and digging in a three-inch layer of organic compost. If you have clay soil, dig in six inches of compost. This healthful exercise could be enjoyed after ordering the bulbs.

Bulbs are traditionally planted in random arrangements, following their natural spread. Planting bulbs in rows is so 19th Century.

The actual planting of bulbs in well-prepared beds can be quick and easy. The usual rule for planting depth is three times the height of the bulb. Stab a trowel into the ground, pull it toward you to open a planting hole, drop in the bulb, pointy side up, and cover.

If gophers or deer snack in your garden, put a handful of gravel at the bottom of the hole, and spray your bulbs in a bucket before planting with a repellent like Deer Off, Liquid Fence or Repel. You might need to plant in gopher baskets, which of course slows the process.

Start now to prepare for next spring’s pleasing display of bulb blossoms.

More

Visit Cindi’s Catalog of Garden Catalogs for many mail-order suppliers of bulbs.
The good ones include the following:

  • Breck’s Bulbs: click on “Spring Bulbs” and “Other Spring Bulbs” for minor bulbs;
  • Brent and Becky’s Bulbs, well-established grower, with a good search tool;
  • Bill the Bulb Baron, a local grower, with fields in Moss Landing;
  • Far West Bulb Farm, specializing in California native bulbs;
  • McClure & Zimmerman, offering a variety of uncommon bulbs;
  • Telos Rare Bulbs, species bulbs from exotic places;
  • Van Bourgondien Bros., good prices for larger volume orders.

Finally, visit the website of the Pacific Bulb Society for non-commercial information. Click on the link to “Pacific Bulb Society Wiki” for photos and descriptions by avid growers of geophytes.

Flood of Gardening Information

This week, I was delighted to see small pink “church bells” appear for the first time in a shady area of my garden. (Click to enlarge)

IMG_0313

I had added three Azores Bellflowers several weeks ago, and hadn’t given them special care, except for infrequent watering. They have settled in nicely on their own, and begun decorating that bed with their attractive flowers. Their botanical name is Azorina vidalii (previously Campanula vidalii) and they were discovered by a naval officer, Captain Vidal, on The Island of the Flowers, in the Archipelago of the Azores.

To learn more about this or any other plant that piques your interest, a good place to look is the online encyclopedia, Wikipedia. Just browse to the website and enter the botanical name of the plant. With rare exceptions, Wikipedia quickly and easily provides detailed information on garden-worthy plants. It’s even worth trying when you have only a plant’s common name or cultivar name.

Wikipedia is just one example of the flood of gardening information that exists on the Internet. Another free online resource for gardeners is Pinterest, which is a vast collection of photographs that individuals and businesses have shared. Called a “visual discovery tool,” Pinterest has images in many categories, and it is searchable by keywords. To use this tool, browse to the website and search for what interests you at the moment. For example, try “gardening” or “garden steps” or “garden ponds,” just to see what turns up.

Two more examples:

YouTube offers many brief “how to” video recordings on garden topics, e.g. planting, pruning, irrigation and others. Visit the website and search for your current interest. For example, a friend who read my column on summer pruning of apple trees asked about pruning plum trees. A quick search of YouTube for “summer pruning of fruit trees” yielded several different video demonstrations of pruning plums, apriums, and others.

Recently, I discovered another resource: ISSUU, an online collection of magazines on many subjects. The collection features some popular selections, but is comprised mostly of relatively esoteric and exotic periodicals. Browse to the website and search for “gardening” or “gardens” to release a flood torrent of mostly unfamiliar but typically well-done publications that relate to the search term. The entries are listed in random order, some are outdated (but still interesting), and a few are mail order catalogs. ISSUU offers ample reading material for the gardener who is tuckered out, rained out or looking out for inspiration.

Together, ISSUU, Pinterest, YouTube and Wikipedia offer free floods of factual information for avid gardeners who have access to an Internet-connected computer. Invest a few minutes to explore these online resources, and use them when you need answers to gardening questions, or fresh ideas for your gardening adventures.

More

There are of course a very large number of additional resources for gardeners on the Internet.

An exceptionally helpful website for selecting and locating particular plants is
Cyndi’s Catalog of Garden Catalogs. This website provides links to a long list of catalogs for mail ordering plants of all kinds. The catalogs are organized by plant genera, with a separate list of general catalogs, plus numerous links to valuable websites under the header “General Advice and Reference.” 

A little time spent in exploring Cyndi’s collection of website links will help to discover seemingly unlimited information on all aspects of gardening.

Still More

More and more people are using the broadband Internet, and find it useful for a variety of reasons. People who do not yet do so often lack understanding of the benefits of broadband access, or need to develop digital literacy. Today’s column provides a glimpse of the Internet’s value for avid gardeners.

The Internet also provides access to free education in digital literacy, through a government-sponsored website, Digital Literacy.gov, which offers self-tests and tutorials. To join the Digital Age, visit the website and get started.

  1. Go to “Topics” and click on “Basic Computing” and got to “New User Tutorial”
  2. After that training (and still in “Basic Computing”) click on “Basic Computer Skills”
  3. When finished with that training, click on “Basic Computer Quiz—Part I” to see how much you have learned.

Congratulations! You have broken the ice! This Digital Literacy website includes many more tutorials to help you become a Digital Information Gardener (DIG).

Summer Pruning of Apple Trees

Do you have one or more apple trees that have vigorous new upright growth, like the shoots, often called water sprouts, shown in the picture? This photo shows new growth on an espaliered Gala apple in my garden, before and after pruning (click to enlarge).

BEFORE PRUNING

Water Sprouts - vert

AFTER PRUNINGWater Sprouts - pruned

Those shoots, usually at least one foot in length, are the tree’s response to heavy pruning during the dormant season, and represent an effort to restore the balance between the canopy and the root system.

Water sprouts are unlikely ever to bear fruit. Instead, they sap the tree’s energy and shade the interior of the tree, slowing the development of vertical growth, and the time for dealing that problem begins now. The period from early August to mid-September is the ideal time for summer pruning, after the new branches have set their terminal buds. This means that the branch has stopped growing for the season, so pruning will not stimulate additional growth. The best practice is to remove the water sprouts with their terminal buds.

Note that some new shoots will be shorter, and horizontal or nearly horizontal. Horizontal shoots (properly called “laterals”) are more likely eventually to bear fruit, so they are treated differently from the vertical or near-vertical shoots.

First, consider training these laterals to close to horizontal, using string or V=notched spreaders, to support fruiting.

Then the recommended treatment is to prune these laterals back to three buds of new growth after the cluster of leaves at its base. This will stimulate the formation of fruiting buds.

Oren Martin, the gardening guru at UC Santa Cruz’s Farm & Garden, says this three-bud pruning system is based on the advice of Louise Lorette a French orchardist of the early 20th century.

Pruning your apple tree’s water sprouts and laterals in this manner can be a repetitious and fussy detailed task, but it really will not take long and will contribute significantly to your tree’s vigor and productivity.

My practice is to listen to National Public Radio on a portable radio while pursuing repetitious tasks like pruning or weeding. That way I can feel like both a conscientious gardener and an informed citizen.

Summer pruning of apple trees is distinctly different from winter pruning, which should focus on the tree’s structure and overall form. Summer pruning, by contrast, emphasizes the tree’s details, keeps sunlight flowing to the interior and supports fruit production

The time for structural pruning of an apple tree is late winter while the tree is dormant and leafless. Winter pruning can stimulate the growth of water sprouts, which are pruned in summer when the tree is not producing new growth. This practice results in less pruning down the line.

When the dormant season comes again, we’ll review the art of winter pruning. Now, during the summer months, pick up your clippers and snip away at those water sprouts.