If you are planning less than a 3 day process, pack them bare root. They will be fine. Even those which need even moisture can be put in a ziplock with a SMALL amount of sphagnum.

THANKS!

Thanks is exactly what I was hoping to hear!

Alexa

Alexa how exciting and depressing at the same time. Moving an established household AND garden is nothing but hard work :>)

As Richard said, orchids bare root will be fine but you can also move them in pot, including the s/h containers. You can use masking tape to tape the contents of the containers in place. Upon arrival, remove tape and water the plants and you are good to go.

I hope your new place has just the right amount of sun for your daylilies, shade for the hosta and HUGE windows for the orchids :>)

Brooke

THanks for the encouragement Brooke.

It will be an adventure but the task is certainly daunting. We still are in the very preliminary stages - but it looks like DH will accept the offer form the company, just the final details to work out.

We haven't even seen any houses in person, but I can guarantee that it will be a plant friendly place! THere is no way I am going anywhere that I can't garden LOLOLOL! I think the plan is to go house shopping over Memorial Day weekend otherwise we have to wait until the kids are done school the middle of June.

Keep your fingers crossed!

Alexa

Where you going??

Jane

Hi Alexa,

I moved from Portland, OR to Dallas, TX last month and I opted to move my houseplants (succulents) and orchids instead of getting rid of them. It was a 4 day drive by car but a two week drive for the household goods. The vast majority of the orchids went in the car with me. However, the larger plants and all the succulents had to ship with the household goods. The dens, cyms and succulents are tough enough to do a two week move especially in April.

Here is what I learned from my move. First off, no standard moving company wants to move plants. They write it into the contract; however, I had one mover tell me that they will move them but they wont take any responsibility for how they arrive. I opted not to tell my mover that 3 boxes contained live plants.

I shipped them in their pots but I bubble-wrapped them snugly. Because it was bubble wrap I only wrapped it around their pots and around the lower part of the plants but left the leaves unwrapped so they could breath a bit. I put a ton of "FRAGILE" tape on each box and I labeled them as "floor lamp" for a tall madagascar palm, "microwave" for a box of succulents and "ceramic art" for the third box of orchids. I used enough strapping tape (the stuff with string in it) to make sure nothing came open and then I put a bit of crumpled newspaper to fill larger gaps.

Here's the one thing I forgot and I highly recommend that you don't. You need bold type arrows with "THIS SIDE UP" on all plant boxes that you are shipping. Movers need to conserve space when they're packing a trailer so they will tip even "FRAGILE" boxed on their sides and maybe even on their heads to get them to fit. Also, you may watch them load the boxes but they may re-load them down the line so that is no guarantee that they will travel as desired.

With the shakeup that mine went through I lost a few leaves on my succulents and a couple were out of their pots all together. One pot was broke. The orchids themselves travelled fine. I lost a spike of flowers on one of my cym and one new bud of growth. But the spike was at least three weeks old and the lost bud of growth has since been replaced with two more so I'm rather pleased that they all arrived in one piece.

FYI, I've lost three out of the dozens of orchids that drove with me in the car. I made the mistake of leaving two boxes of orchids in the trunk overnight on the continental divide in WY. I put a blanket over them for additional protection but it dropped below freezing and a couple of the orchids weren't under the blanket. I lost the first orchid I ever purchased, a phal, and three leaves on the second phal that I purchased. It's going to be ok but it's going to be ugly for a while. Also a couple of small dens kicked the bucket. The phal went quick, the dens took about 3 weeks to go.

If you have a lot of plants, pack them bare root and send them to your new place UPS ground. It'll take a few days, but the plants will be fine. You'll make it to your new place and wait for your plants to arrive. Mark perishable on the box.
I always wrap my plants in newspaper. They seem to do okay. Never had a problem. Bummer you have to move. Good luck

Luckily, I haven't had to move orchids...yet! However, if I were planning to move, and decided to ship bare root orchids to my new address, I would choose USPS Priority Mail... simply because I can pack quite a few things into a decent sized Flat Rate box, which are free from USPS, and it only takes 2 to 3 days on average for the package to arrive at its destination.

I would pack them as close to the way that I've received well-packaged plants via mail... using baggies and masking tape, or bubble wrap and styrofoam peanuts... you could form inserts of sorts using cardboard... I actually save some of the plastic inserts that plants come in for just this sort of thing...

Plant material is shipped all over the world, and as long as care is taken to package it so there's very little movement within the box, and the transit time is relatively short, there should be very little problems in sending your bare root plants to your new home.

It might be prudent to contact the Post Office where you're moving to and ask about their delivery system, and ask if they will hold any packages for you to pick up so they're not left sitting in the cold or sun.

Good luck on your move! I hope everything survives the trip and flourishes for you!

Thanks for all the great info!

I had actually thought about sending some of my hostas and daylilys via USPS Priority, I don't know why it didn't occur to me to send the orchids that way too.....

Boy is the new USPS person going to think I'm a whacko when several boxes of plants arrive the day after we do! LOL! At last count I am shipping in the neighborhood of 100 hosta divisions and 30 or so daylilys... and now adding a box of orchids! LOLOLOL!

It still isn;t definite we are moving... it is all up to DH and whether or not he wants this new job. I will keep you posted though!

Alexa

The not knowing for certain would do me in! That leaves a lot more to last minute! At least if you were sure you were moving, and had a specific date, you'd have the time to choose more carefully what to take and what to leave, and pack it better... quick packing could be the undoing for some precious possessions...

Your Postal people won't look at you any funnier than they look at me... I get so many plants and other packages in the mail, and drop off so many to be mailed, that they've gotten used to just keeping the mail until we come to get it every day!

If it's cost effective for you, mailing yourself all of the plants you want to take with would be a great idea... I'd say that about 95% of the plants I've gotten in the mail have arrived in wonderful condition!

I'm moving from the San Francisco bay area to Salem, Oregon, and my truck-driving cousin will be renting a truck to take them there. Unfortunately, we have to go through part of the central valley in late June, and it's very HOT. Suggestions?

Plan that part of the trip at night.

Brooke

Buy a cheap styrofoam cooler (or two) and stick the orchids in it; bareroot if necessary for space considerations. They'll be just fine, and you can use the coolers for picnics and other stuff later on. I use them all the time when transporting orchids long distance in Florida heat. Used them last week coming back from Redlands -- a two-day drive. Use them every year, lol.