Gardening Question of the Week:
Is it Too Hot To Transplant?
Thursday July 23, 2009
The short answer is yes. Summer is never the best time to move plants or trees. Unfortunately, there are times when you must move it or lose it. In those instances, there is a bit of magic that will allow you to move plants in your garden during the dog days of summer. It's called water. It's not fool proof, but with a little diligence, summer transplanting can be done successfully. Here's a Quick Tip for Transplanting Perennial Plants in the Summer, with the whens and wherefores of watering.
Trees can be a bit trickier. Root pruning is the magic needed to successfully move and established tree and that takes some preplanning.
Photo: © Marie Iannotti (2007) licensed to About.com, Inc.
Comments
Apart from extra water, especially overnight, I make portable shade with shade cloth and a light wooden frame on legs. Easy to make from scraps and keeps the plant, the mulch and thus the roots cooler. Wire frames work, anything that supports the cloth.
I also take as large a clump of soil as possible to protect the tender roots and line the new hole with rich, damp compost. I make sure to soak the transplants with a gentle watering at least once a day for several days thereafter.
Since annuals take to moving much better than perennials, I use them liberally to fill in my perennial beds. Also, as a practice, I overfill my pots early in the season to make them more attractive and by early to mid-summer I’m busy transplanting. I love moving color around to the perennial beds as they wax and wane. It’s rare that my annuals stay in one place for an entire season.
Seems like the key to transplanting in summer is being around to care for the plants. Gardeners that are always working in their gardens anyway are there to watch over transplants and keep them happy.
Thanks for the excellent tip!
I transplanted three nice plants last summer and lost them. I wish I’d read your suggestion sooner.
Cover them, for at least the first few days….with anything you have…..clay pots, newspaper, white cloth. Plastic is not so good unless you can rig up something to keep it off the plant …and then only light colored plastic. I think many of us lose plants because we don’t want the ugly covering in our beautiful gardens.
I’ve had to transplant more than a few shrubs and a couple small trees during the summer, and had success with all of them so far. Most of the tricks I use have been mentioned, but I’ll list them anyway. I start by watering whatever plant I’m going to move, so the roots and soil around them are moist and won’t crumble apart as much. Then, I dig a hole a bit larger than I think the root ball is in. After I cut around the plant, I start going underneath to make sure I get the deep roots too. Once the root ball is free, I carefully lift out of the hole and into a wheelbarrow. When I dig out my new hole, I make sure it’s a bit larger than my root ball, and I put high quality top soil or gardening soil in the bottom and up the sides. I then drop the plant in and fill the rest of the hole with that soil. I compact it well to remove the air, then mulch and water thoroughly. I make sure to water daily when it’s hot and we get no rain, a little less if we have cool and/or cloudy weather. I don;t fertilize either, I don’t want to burn up the plant and kill it. So far, I’ve successfully done this with Azaleas, Crepe Myrtles, a Blue Spruce, a Peach tree, and some Forsythia. Water is the absolute most critical item, but good sil and a thick layer of mulch are the next 2. I haven’t transplanted any perennials yet (I haven’t gotten to that stage in my garden yet, I had to start from scratch). My main reason for transplanting has been deer related, as they’ve tended to eat most of the foliage off anything not within 20 feet of my house(or that’s already a pretty healthy sized tree), so time is of the essence for me. I have to transplant ASAP or risk losing a plant to them.
I always have a 2 gallon bucket filled with Vitamin B1. I dunk the whole plant into the solution, just to wet and then proceed with planting. Has always worked well for me. Of course you can only do this with smaller things.
mthicalgal, what does the B1 do? I’ve never heard of this.