I've seen plenty of BB'd trees dug in mid-summer of up to 6" caliber not skip a beat- this is the kind of work landscape contractors routinely do that have very high-end clientele. Also well funded arboretums. No misting no wilting of leaves as trees look untouched. Trees needn't suffer any stress at all- but boy, the poor people who have to move all that soil do. Misting is for the nursery trade where trees must be moved long distances, I think, and taking enough soil to prevent stress would be prohibitively expensive. For the poster it would seem to be very good advice, however, given his unusual situation. I've moved plenty of dormant 3" caliber apples bare root and they generally recover after a single season (if you remove all flowers and cut back spurs when necessary)- you get much more root going bare root. I've never liked what tree spades do to a root system and you can never take much root even when hand digging and bb-ing

Commercial growers move pecans this size but they have huge hydralic tree spades to get the job done. They also remove 95% of the top the year before moving the tree. In your case I'd plant new trees in the new location and get by on what you have until the new ones produce. The Fruitnut

Mature trees, including deciduous trees, do not transplant well. They do, however, transplant fairly well if balled and burlapped. I get the impression though that you are either moving far or for some other reason do not wish to transport a large tree with soil on it. If you want to try the b&b method, reply again and I'll post the best procedure. Joe

A few weeks ago we transplanted a lime tree that had been growing in the ground for about 5 years. We were advised to plant it into a whiskey barrel planter. We followed all the directions of a professional but the tree looks dead and did so the day after transplanting it. I am very concerned because we were not told to prune the tree first and to not worry about how many roots we had to cut. We were told that the tree could lose 70% of its roots. We were also told to water the tree on a slow drip for 48 hours prior to transplanting. I have since read that the ground should have been dried 2-3 days prior and that we should not have cut the roots. I guess we basically did everything wrong! What do you think the chances are for this poor tree? Did we fail miserably? Were these completely wrong instructions? We moved and wanted to take the tree with us.