Meant to answer your personal email question but you do not have an email contact through GW!! You might want to change that if you do attempt email contacts :-) Previous answers are good - any time the tree is dormant and the ground workable (not frozen or overly saturated) is a fine time to move/transplant. In my area (actually same as the two above), JM's do not emerge from dormancy until well into March. I'd say you have several months still to accomplish your move :-))

The mud balls website says to throw them in fall and they will gently break down over winter, covering the seeds naturally and creating the perfect growing environment for the seeds. Also, the mud ball method discourages birds from eating the seeds as they can't really get to them. Finally, many wildflower seeds actually need the freeze and thaw of winter to deteriorate their tough seed coats so they can properly germinate in early spring.

I only have experience with trilliums.... They grow well around here. There were a few already here when we bought this property in 1999 but we're added to them since. What has worked for us is to plant them dormant in mid summer, plant them in areas with lots of leaf litter - under trees, and never water or disturb them while they are dormant! There are lots of squirrels here and, as far as I can tell, they've never bothered them. The white trilliums are more vigorous for us than red ones - white ones are the provincial flower of Ontario so that might be a sign that they are particularly suited here. They are now spreading by both offsets and seedlings. Some pictures....: Cole in the nearby 'trillium wood' that is my reference for what I'd like to have here! White trilliums near the shed in our garden: A closer view from 2015 where you can see seedlings getting big enough to start to bloom: (Note the plentiful oak leaves in those pictures! The trilliums seem to like those conditions....) Red trilliums don't seem as happy here and are spreading much slower: On the issue of squirrels and tulips.... Here the squirrels seem inclined to ADD tulips to our garden! Several years after we started gardening here, a clump of orange tulips appeared under the oak tree in the back yard. We didn't plant them and the tulips looked suspiciously like ones in a neighbour's yard down the street! :-) So we assume the squirrels planted them..... Aside from deadheading the tulips once the flowers fade, I do nothing to them - they keep returning and the clump gets bigger as the years pass. The oldest picture I can find on this computer is 2010 but I think they first appeared before that. 2010: 2015 (apologies for the poor picture quality!) Some salmony-pink tulips appeared in the front garden 2-3 years ago that I was sure we didn't plant and, looking around, I saw the same ones in a garden across the street! So squirrels might dig up the occasional bulb, but they are probably gifting it to a neighbour :-)

I need to move a large Salvia melissodora. I think I will do it before deciduousness because I need to be worried about root rot. I think October in the slow wind down but still some good growth left in the season. It is rated as a Z 9 salvia being grown in a Z8 area. It has lived for a long time but it has lost its sun due to a tree that had the gall too grow. It has not bloomed worth a darn lately.