1. Get help. You'll need at least 1 other person...maybe 2.

2. Dig a nice wide hole with gentle sloping sides where you will put it.

3. Dig a trench about 18 inches from the trunk and 18 inches deep. Then go around undercutting the root ball.

4. Have a garbage can cover or snow saucer available.

5a. If your soil is clay, you and your help should be able to lift it up and out onto the garbage can/saucer with shovels.

5b. If your soil is sandy trying to keep a rootball together may be tough.

6. Plant with just the native soil and water in well.

Now Ken will provide a link that would have saved my all this typing...lol

tj

Thanks for the rapid response - I need it. I won't be doing the digging out. The contractors will, for better or worse. I will have burlap, a wheelbarrow and the new hole ready. From what you're saying, maybe it's best if I start digging the trench so it defines the size of the root ball. Will they need special shovels to go down 18 inches and lift it out?

Kit, what they should be doing is digging with sharpened shovels, all around the periphery of what will become the rootball, with back of shovel blade facing plant. The objective here is to cut through roots, not bang into them dully and loosen everything up. Cut, cut cut!

Then using shovel normally, scooping out the loosened soil, then returning to cutting with the back towards plant, until sufficiently deep to undercut the root ball with "sharpshooter"-style spade. However, even at nurseries, this is pretty much a lost art. Nobody even knows how to just dig nowadays! But hopefully, I've provided some sense of what is involved. Used to do much hand-digging of smallish conifers, and every now and then, a much larger one, back in the day. We're talking way back, lol.

+oM

this is how you do it. ... just scale it up ...

i would start digging 3 feet out .... so you end up with the 18 to 24 inch root ball ...

ken

http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/1827881/how-to-transpalnt-a-conifer-tree-huge-pix-post

Do you guys recommend watering well the day before? Just squirreling away info for later :)

Yes , water, but more than day before,,,give it chance to drain but still moist

other guys didn't mention burlap , but you did,,,,once you dig down to bottom of root ball ,wrap with burlap , an tie well with twine,,,then tip tree over,,sever bottom roots,,,get more burlap underneath ,,lift tree with burlap

when replanting , half fill hole with soil , then water,,let drain,,fill soil,,water again

make sure you measure height of root ball , and depth of hole ,,,make hole couple in. shorter

ron

edit:mike might be right about weight,,,5ft tree has big ball

mike will you come over with that thing ?

plant, it sure has come in handy the last few months. Fun to run too!

Do you guys recommend watering well the day before?

==>>> i would have watered it deeply.. all summer ... to insure the plant had soaked up all it could ... but hindsight is 20/20 eh ... facts dont give you any alternative ...

probably too late.. i doubt it will suck up enough to make a difference in one day.. if you have any kind of decent moisture ...

ken

Makes sense! Don't want it any heavier than it already is

miketann I would love to have had the dingo tractor this summer for sure! The concrete guy that did our patio had something like that - cool attachments for it. My screen name comes from our first dog though - a shepherd cross that really did look like a dingo.

hey EDIT , shoot us a pic when the move is done

ron

oops

I'm not moving it! It's Kitasei. Thankfully :) I have stuff to move later though.

The deed was done, in the fog of war, I prepared the hole, on the downward slope on the other side of the path, and tied up the branches. The ground was wet after two days of heavy rain, which made digging easier and lifting harder for three strong men, who dragged it across the path on a tarp. Aside from the quality of the root ball (the roots appeared mostly fibrous with one major lateral root, fairly mangled), my doubts are how it was oriented. They carefully oriented it the same direction it was. That means that the barer side now faces the path, and the lovely branches that swept the ground are now lying uphill on the slope... They said this way it will "fill in." It would be a major pain to try to turn it now, but should I try?

Here, the north side is always darker and thinner than the south, all other factors being equal. I think the best views are from the side, looking at it from the east or west so you can see the difference. A little more chiaroscuro, if you like. That's more apparent with the gold varieties, however.

Re-orientating it is up to you. Correction, three strong men. ;-)

Mike

As it is now, the full side is facing east and the bare side facing west. But the question is, will the bare lower branches of an evergreen (ever-yellow?) EVER fill in?

One more question.... would trimming some of the foliage take some of the burden off the abused root ball? If so, when should I do it??

no pruning ...... water it properly .... for up to 3 years... to regrow the root mass .. i think i gave you the link above ....

it will sacrifice various parts.. due to transplant.. winter damage etc .... and if certain parts die.. then we will prune ...

once it gets fully re established .... then we can start sculpting it ... no real hurry ...

every leaf is a food making machine.. lets leave them all there.. for now ...

ken

There's been a lot of debate about that subject, but in this case, I wouldn't do that.

Mike

good answer mike.. i doubt the OP wanted.. nor needed the debate ...

think of it this way ... you hurt your foot/roots.... we dont suggest cutting off your arms/branches ... so the foot will heal faster ...

or... you want your hair to grow faster... so you cut your toenails more often.. whats that all about.. lol ...

BTW ... any branches cracked or broken during the process.... can and should be cut off ... and dont be surprised ... if you find such in spring ... after the drying of winter .... and certain brown areas show up ....

ken

I don't think there to be any serious debate-the concept of "balancing" root loss at transplant by reducing branch/foliage has been thoroughly discredited for a long time. It just doesn't match actual tree biology to think that true. Now the last bit Ken said-removing busted stuff, or perhaps tweaking some obvious structural issue can be done with no ill effects. But not that "balancing" thing.

+oM

The filling in will depend largely on viable buds on the branches. I have seen minor growth of dormant buds on the trunks of hinokis, but they would take a looooong time to fill in. Any chance of some pics?

tj

my quandary was.. and always will be... how do you know which ones to cut off ... what if you cut off the only ones that will end up viable ... and the rest die ...

and on that basis ... i was usually paralyzed into taking no action ... until i was convinced the plant was fully re established ... and it really didnt matter ...

i fully expect some serious problems with die back ... and browning .. transplant damage ..... etc ... and you should too ... dont go all ballistic with what you see in spring .. or summer next year ... it will just be the evolution of what you did to it ... and it wasnt done by peeps with experience ...

complete proper... deep watering.. and near drying in between such ..... will be the key ... see link above ... for two or three years ... if you save and regrow the roots ... the plant will survive ...

and to be sure.. there will be odds... that it will end up looking like something completely different.. so be it ...

if you have questions and concerns next year.. we will need pix ...

ken