TIPS FOR TRANSPLANTATION

Early spring is a great time to transplant trees and shrubs, but you should do it before they wake up. It is like operating on a person while they are awake. Dormancy begins in the fall as soon as you experience a good hard frost, and the plants lie dormant until the weather warms up in the spring.

You can transplant in the spring until the plants come out. When the buds are green and swollen, it is generally safe to transplant, but once the leaf develops, you should wait until fall. When transplanting, you can extract the bushes from the bare root, just make sure they are out of the ground as little as possible and keep the roots moist while they are not in the ground.

Make sure there are no air pockets around the roots when you repot them. When possible, it is always best to dig a ball of soil with the plants when you transplant them. The general rule of thumb is 12 ”of root ball for every 1” of stem gauge. If the diameter of a tree stem is 2 ”, then you should dig a 24” diameter root ball.

gardener cuts branches

Don't be afraid to cut off some roots when transplanting. Just try not to cut them shorter than the guidelines above allow. Cutting the roots will help revitalize the plant. It is a process known simply as root pruning. When the roots are cut, the plant develops lateral roots to compensate for what was lost. These lateral roots are more fibrous in nature and have a better capacity to collect water and nutrients.

Some nurseries drive tractors over plants in the field with a device that cuts the roots of the plant only to force the plant to develop more fibrous roots. This makes transplanting the plant the following year much more successful and makes it a stronger and healthier plant.

Veterans pruned roots by hand by forcing a shovel into the soil around their plants. If you have a poorly performing plant in your garden, a little root pruning while the plant is dormant could help it rebound. Worth the effort.