Moving a Lime Tree

[Spruce Pirate]

11 hours ago, Mark Bolam said:

It will be an interesting project mate.

Keep us updated please.

Will do.  At least this rain should be softening up the ground, although....., thinking about it, that might not be so good for the digger.

 

 

As far as avenues go I'm not sure that they have to be one species, there's a stretch of road along from us known as the avenue that has quite a few species in it, oak dominated but also some lime, sycamore and I think a couple of ash.  They're not all uniform, but they are all mature in varying forms.  It makes quite a nice avenue despite not being completely uniform.

 

I do agree though, that in this particular case the avenue does want to be as uniform as possible.  I think youth makes it more desirable that it is uniform, whereas we're more forgiving of mature trees.  Younger trees in mix with more mature trees are another matter.  You need a pretty big gap to fit a young tree in if it's surrounded by mature trees, which generally means you've got an avenue with big holes in it.  Putting a young tree in now means that said big hole might have filled up in 50 years time, certainly in 100 years time, so I wouldn't be totally against "gapping up" an avenue with young stock.  I've heard of people planting a new avenue 50' wider than an existing avenue on both sides, giving an overall increase in width of around 100', the idea being that this will be well established when the existing avenue is past it's best and dies off that the new one will be properly established, just wider.  Presumably this could work in reverse as well, planting a narrower avenue the next time around.

 

 

[Spruce Pirate]

Update on moving the lime.  After the advice on here we've made the decision to dig a trench round the tree this year and move it next year.  I looked at it with the digger driver and agreed what size of rootball would be movable and we went back and hand dug the trench.  Roughly 2' to 3' deep, basically dug down to the water-table.  I need to go back down and check the outlet channel is working to prevent build up of water.

 

Any further tips or useful advice very welcome.