[Stonehenge]

Every so often I drive by a great tree that's in a vacant lot or poorly utilized place, and I wonder if the owner of that property would be willing to part with the tree in exchange for a small fee.

Had I pushed I probably could've gotten my hands on a beautiful 20' Amur Maple, but extracting it seemed like it'd be a lot of work.

Has anyone ever done this? Approached someone you didn't know to ask about buying a tree on their lot? If you have, did you offer them a price comparable to what a nursery might charge (less any subbing out of a tree spade truck)?

[Bill Schwab]

Jeff:

It is pretty common practice out here for people to get approached if an architect or homeowner has a specimen that someone wants. For an extreme example, the couple who hosted our wedding in Rancho Santa Fe had toi move out of a custom built home and sell it as a knock down because of a toxic mold that entered from a leaky sink. In the yard was a 6' tall by 35' wide Phoenix palm. It was estimated at being 120 years old. They were approached 3 times from people, (architects) and asked to sell the tree. The price, $50,000.00 plus costs to move anf fill in a 9'x9'x9' hole. Since she was the grand daughter of John Deere, she did not need to money and opted to have us move the tree to her yard.

I get asked quite a bit about giving credit for trees that a client does not want, and, unless we have a specific place to put them, I turn them down. I always wonder if we could ever make any money removing and staging trees in boxes until they sold, but then you have al that after care. Then I weigh out the cost of labor to remove and box them up, vs the cost of digging a hole and buying a nice specimen from one of the local growers. I rarely ever get it to pencil out in favor of digging a tree. The times I can are when someone has a Canary Island Palm or something exotic, something that we could sell for 5K or more. Typically, these trees weigh 30,000 lbs, and stand 30' tall. We tie up the fronds, dig around the base, starp them up and the crane does it's thing. Then we caravan with a flatbed, and the crane while the transplant crew waits at the trees new home. That's about the only way it has ever worked out for us.

[prapoza]

There is a guy in my town that specializes in just what your talking about. Buying specimen trees and shrubs and transplanting them to his nursery. To purchase his plant material is very expensive but he has hard to find sizes and material. He doesn't pay much for it either. He seems to do very well with it.
__________
Paul

[P-Train]

Yesterday a HOA approached me with the idea of digging up a 20' blue spruce from nearby and transplanting it to their subdivision entrance to match an existing one.

What do you think the cost of this would be?

What's the likelihood it would live?

Ballpark figure anyone?

[VoodooChile]

P-train,
Moving trees that haven't been grown under nursery conditions, i.e. haven't been periodically root -pruned, is specialized work, and I wouldn't touch it.

That said, Spruce have compact fibrous root-systems and stand better chance of success of transplant than Pines. Timing and preparation of the tree for transplant over a season would be critical for success. Follow-up care for several years after transplant is also essential.

How much? More than any HOA would ever be willing to pay!

[Dale Wiley]

20 foot spruce should be no problem. Hire a tree spade and dig at least a 48 root ball, 52 or 60 if the spade is big enough and have them transport it and set in the hole, that you have already dug.

We have done this multiple times over the years and never lost a tree yet.

As far as cost and removals, Bill is right on with his take. Most specimin trees that large that are avaliable have been in nurseries for years.

Heres a link to a nursery that specializes in that type of material.Cascadian Nurseries

[VoodooChile]

A local grower here specifies 48" as a minimum ball diameter for transplanting a 20' Nursery Grown evergreen. A Blue Spruce that spent the bulk of its time reaching 20' in the Residential Landscape would benefit from a larger diameter ball.

The difference between Dale's "no problem" and my "no way" attitude probably has to do with soil conditions and winter humidities. Here in the southern Wisconsin our soils are predominantly clay and can go into the winter bone dry, when bitter winds dessicate needle and broadleaf evergreens, resulting in winter burn, often lethal. Three years ago we had a dry fall, followed by a dry bitter winter, and many large established evergreens cooked, as well as a ton of newer plantings.

Dale,
I've never been to the great Pacific Northwest, but understand the winters to be wetter and milder, and the soils to be more humus rich (altho that varies greatly I bet). Is that correct? I also wonder if you provide follow-up care for the transplants? HOAs I have found to be not so great at watering, either neglecting or flooding specimen trees, and requiring lots of hand holding to insure success.

Without doubt, Colorado Blue Spruce would be a prime candidate for transplant in large sizes, but out here the risk wouldn't be worth the profit.

[Bill Schwab]

We have had some pretty good success with pine transplants, get a big spade, have at it. The times the spade guys liked for transplant was spring. Otto Dammgard and Sons out of the north shore of Lake Michigan in IL. would even move and guarantee an OAK tree if they hit the right time to do so. I'll never forget watching the boobular tube one evening and seeing these two Red Oaks with 30' diameter balls they dug, set on railroad tracks so they could move them 35' over for the road to be widened.

I don't claim at all to be a large caliper tree expert, but these spade guys can be magicians when you consdier everything written about trees and when to transplant. Lots of never can do being done. Morton Arboretum has been working on ways to move Oaks for years now, and last I read had a system perfected for the after care of a large (2' diameter) tree to be moved.

[agla]

We often use tree moving subs. Usually it is for large cedars (~20'), but often for ornamentals as well. They have a range of ball sizes, but usually it is the 96" or the bigger one that they have (unsure of the size). That 20' spruce would be done with one of these in my area. They usually charge about $1,500 a piece.

[Dale Wiley]

agla:

The winters here are wet in a normal year. In the Willamette Valley, we should average about 37 inchs of rain a year between mid Ocotber and mid May.

The majority of the soils where the trees are grown is on deep, modified alluvial plain soils washed down here in the Missoula floods.The entire Willameet Valley has these or some modified types of these soils in over several million acres. A nice rich mixture of sandy loam, clay, that when properly watered or with natural mostiure has excellent holding capbilities when dug anywhere from 28 inch to 96 inch size in wire baskets.

The majority of the digging is done starting about Feb 1 to June 1. The nurseries will supplement water the trees to be dug if the growers feel the mostiure is not sufficent at digging time.

These soils are so deep in some spots, that there is over 22 feet of top soil. A good friend owns one of the largest tree nurseries in the Northwest and they have been growing and digging trees on 450 acres for over 25 years now.

We have 3 soil classes on 5 acres at our place. We are in "bottom ground " which a portion of it floods every year. We have aproximately 1.5 acres of container yard and greenhouses, 1.5 acres of stock growing ground, and another 1.5 acres that we are growing rushes, sedges and native grasses for division and seed on. This portion flood every year, but it does not affect that type of plant materials.

We fallow out portions, and let the native grasses grow back and just let them die off and re seed. We had all 3.5 acres in a crop conservation program and let it grow for 6 years with out mowing, cultivation. We added over 3 tons per acre organic matter back to the soil profile and it became better soil than it every was before.

We DO NOT dig and sell anything balled and burlaed, or with native soil on it. Every thing is containerized for finishing, native soils are used for propagation only.

In this case of tree planting, we would provide follow up care under a maintenance contract, for just the tree if nescesaery, documenting everything we did or they did. No contract, no guarantee, you must sign off on it.

I would not dig the tree out of the afore mentioned time window. We did move some lindens in 60 inch root balls in early March, 25 of them, I had a spade truck come in, cost me $ 350 each to move them 20 feet each, 100% survival. Our rain is well below average this year, about 7 inches under normal.

We planted 12 western red cedars, 15 feet tall last week and we augered up almost dry soil. The trees were well watered before digging, we watered them in and I don't see any problems.

We have 103 shade trees going in next week, and will use the same process there as well.

Check out this nursery, it's owned by a life long friend, and adjacent to our property.

http://www.efnursery.com

[VoodooChile]

This story of moving a big tree might be unfamiliar to some of you.

First ever National Champion tree transplanted at Purdue University

Dale, Sounds as sweet as I imagined...topsoil 22' deep. Clearly, there's good reason the Pacific Northwest is the country's horticultural hotspot.

[r schipul]

It's also very common in CT as well. As for the price paid to the homeowner, it's usually in the $500-$1500 dollar range. There is a high end nursery in Long Island which makes a lot of their money ($18,000,000 gross) this way. Their nursery if full of speciman plants for $30,000-$50,000 each. My friend used to be the head designer there and would tell me all kinds crazy stories. One time they helicoptered a copper beech they got for free from one property in Long island to another in Connecticut. That's an extreme. There are also plenty of smaller companies moving 20-40' trees by knocking on doors.