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Australian Native Plants

australian grass trees

20 years ago

Hi everyone, Soon I will need to transplant two grass trees to another area of the garden. THE TROUBLE IS I'm not sure how to go about it without risking it's unfortunately death. I know how hard it is to successfully move them so I would dearly appreciate any advise to lessen the trauma for these plants...Both plants have trunks of about 40cm, so I'm guessing their age to be around 60years old. I don't think they have been previously moved

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Comments (3)

wazcrazy
20 years ago
You have quite a predicament here.
Grass trees hate root disturbance to the point that they keel over and die.
There has being may a post here on these beautiful boys but really nothing really works well some people have cut the leaves back to half there original length spray with seasol dig around the tree by about 3ft and 3ft down place a hessian under the root ball and lug it to a pre-dug hole back fill as normal then water in and apply more seasol once a week for a couple of months or until new growth appears
(now I havent tried this so this is all just theory but try looking through the historical posts and they might have the answer but in the words of the great one
"MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU"
nathanhurst
20 years ago
Do you absolutely have to move them? I've heard that the survival rate is about 10%, hearing from a friend about a business moving them before land clearing.
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The soil just under the base of the tree may be damp, but I'm betting the rest of the soil in that pot is bone dry. That tree looks like it's dying of lack of water. If I were you I'd take it out of the pot and examine the soil. Sometimes potting mix can seem wet on the surface but have large dry pockets down deeper. If it's a peat based mix, and most store bought are, if it gets too dry one time, it's almost impossible to re-wet from just watering from the top. It would need to be submerged in a larger pot that does not drain, and really let it soak for 24 hours. Then remove and water normally. Imo, 2 weeks without watering is way too long.
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djburn_bigpond_net_au
20 years ago
Does anyone know how long we can keep our grass tree (a present) in a 30cm pot. It hasn't reached the sides of the pot yet.

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