Moving a Lime Tree

[daveatdave]

this may be over the top but you can get smaller ones that fit on a teleporter  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTige-4AhPk

[Gary Prentice]

8 hours ago, Macaulay said:

You should dig down and sever the roots leaving a rootball at about 1m in diameter this should be done a couple of months before transplant and the rootball will fill with fiberous roots and give it a better chance of survival.

You could buy one grown in airpot for a couple of hundred. It would have a much better chance of survival and less fucking about.

It's a good point, although the difficulty might actually be to source the correct variety of common lime. There's a lot of different varieties and the wrong one would/could stick out like a sore thumb, ruining the whole aesthetic of the avenue. 

 

 

7 hours ago, Spruce Pirate said:

1m in diameter?  This seems quite small for a tree this size, I was assuming it to be nearer 2m diameter.

Just looking at BS5837 the RPA of a single stem diameter of 150mm tree gives a soil volume of 10 M2 (radius of a nominal circle 1.8m. I know that rootballed trees come with a lot small root-ball but they've been grown and prepared  for lifting.

7 hours ago, Spruce Pirate said:

 

 I'll do some spade work, or see if I can persuade someone else to do some spade work while I "supervise".

.

You'll need a clean hi-viz jacket and a clip board to undertake a supervisory role though.

[Stere]

Sensible would be just  plant a smaller one. In a few  years in will catch up.

 

But if you have the eqiupment or  £  to hire it tree spade etc I suppose why not.....

 

[Khriss]

3 hours ago, Gary Prentice said:

It's a good point, although the difficulty might actually be to source the correct variety of common lime. There's a lot of different varieties and the wrong one would/could stick out like a sore thumb, ruining the whole aesthetic of the avenue. 

 

 

Just looking at BS5837 the RPA of a single stem diameter of 150mm tree gives a soil volume of 10 M2 (radius of a nominal circle 1.8m. I know that rootballed trees come with a lot small root-ball but they've been grown and prepared  for lifting.

You'll need a clean hi-viz jacket and a clip board to undertake a supervisory role though.

....sorry Gary, am still smirking from the " I personally would hand dig...." comment ?  K

 

As mentioned by others,  cheese wiring the root out, a trenching saw would cut down to abt 600mm, cleanly severing the roots then slip yr wire under n zip it out, yr square root ball will plant just as easily k

[Rough Hewn]

Am I the only one reading this who's thinking..
Cut n chip,
Quick pop down to arb nursery.
Dig hole, water, plant tree.
1 man, 1 day.
Much cheaper.
Or is it a "highly valuable black lime"?
[emoji12][emoji106]

[dan blocker]

Had to move a small Oak of a similar size to this Lime because it was in the way of my new workshop. Looked into getting a tree spade but none local and figured it would cost £4-600 anyway and for that I could of bought 10 or 12 potted trees 2.5mts high? 

Having just planted more than a hundred mixed trees both potted and root balled and seen how they had trimmed the roots and just slapped clay on the root ball before wiring I decided to move the tree myself?.

As a mate was working with his 11/2 ton mini digger literally just around the corner I grabbed him at the end of the day to “just do a quick job for me”?

what I simply did was dig a square trench around the tree with a large pit on the one side to allow me to drop the loadall headstock and forks into it and used this to sever the roots and soil beneath the rather large plug? Rounded of the plug with a spade and wrapped around it with fabric and pig wire, a couple of ratchet straps around to hold it together and lifted the lot out of the hole.

Moved it 50mts and set it down on to some slings and backed forks from under plug and reconfigured the forks above root ball and lowered it down into the new pit having mixed a few bags of tree compost with some quality topsoil.

Lay a wrap of 100 mm plastic drain pipe around the base for watering and backed filled with quality top soil and trod it in. Didn’t require staking or bracing as it was solid. This was carried out early April ?2019 and so far it looks promising, full leave flush. Next two years will really show if it’s succesful or not.

Not many lateral roots to trim but couldn’t believe how much root mass was below the ball. Didn’t trim them as decided to minimise root loss. Watered it well all year(we had a few hot days if you remember?)The whole thing settled about 75mm over the next 6 months. Only took a few pictures cos I was rushing to keep the cost down?

Cost - a good drink?, those digger drivers drink a lot??

sorry it’s long winded gents but that’s how I did it.

Limes are hardy and will survive butchering above ground so loosing a few roots won’t harm it!

 

[Spruce Pirate]

Yes, everyone who has suggested planting a new tree is right.  It would be cheaper.  It would be easier.  Point is the Laird wants the one they've got moving, so the one they've got is going to move.  Estates are like that.  Besides there's more fun in trying to move the tree than just popping town to the nursery and sticking a new on in.

 

 

 

16 hours ago, Gary Prentice said:

Just looking at BS5837 the RPA of a single stem diameter of 150mm tree gives a soil volume of 10 M2 (radius of a nominal circle 1.8m. I know that rootballed trees come with a lot small root-ball but they've been grown and prepared  for lifting.

You'll need a clean hi-viz jacket and a clip board to undertake a supervisory role though.

I'll base my digging on a 1.8m radius to start off with and see how it goes.  I think we'll probably end up with a smaller root ball to make it liftable, but seems sensible to start off big when seeing how far the roots actually spread.  All my hi-vis jacket are dirty, this might explain why I've never made it into management.

 

 

2 hours ago, dan blocker said:

Had to move a small Oak of a similar size to this Lime because it was in the way of my new workshop. Looked into getting a tree spade but none local and figured it would cost £4-600 anyway and for that I could of bought 10 or 12 potted trees 2.5mts high? 

Having just planted more than a hundred mixed trees both potted and root balled and seen how they had trimmed the roots and just slapped clay on the root ball before wiring I decided to move the tree myself?.

As a mate was working with his 11/2 ton mini digger literally just around the corner I grabbed him at the end of the day to “just do a quick job for me”?

what I simply did was dig a square trench around the tree with a large pit on the one side to allow me to drop the loadall headstock and forks into it and used this to sever the roots and soil beneath the rather large plug? Rounded of the plug with a spade and wrapped around it with fabric and pig wire, a couple of ratchet straps around to hold it together and lifted the lot out of the hole.

Moved it 50mts and set it down on to some slings and backed forks from under plug and reconfigured the forks above root ball and lowered it down into the new pit having mixed a few bags of tree compost with some quality topsoil.

Lay a wrap of 100 mm plastic drain pipe around the base for watering and backed filled with quality top soil and trod it in. Didn’t require staking or bracing as it was solid. This was carried out early April ?2019 and so far it looks promising, full leave flush. Next two years will really show if it’s succesful or not.

Not many lateral roots to trim but couldn’t believe how much root mass was below the ball. Didn’t trim them as decided to minimise root loss. Watered it well all year(we had a few hot days if you remember?)The whole thing settled about 75mm over the next 6 months. Only took a few pictures cos I was rushing to keep the cost down?

Cost - a good drink?, those digger drivers drink a lot??

sorry it’s long winded gents but that’s how I did it.

Limes are hardy and will survive butchering above ground so loosing a few roots won’t harm it!

 

This is very encouraging, as despite all the good intentions of hand digging and figuring out how it should be done, I have a feeling it may come down to what becomes practical to do on the day.

[jarborist]

Basically what Dan blocker said. Done some similar and the ones I still see survived. The ones I dont see - don't know but suspect they are fine. 

Often hand dug the edges but as long as you tidy them up ( old handsaw etc) - it's all similar. Hope it goes well. 

[Mark Bolam]

9 hours ago, Spruce Pirate said:

Yes, everyone who has suggested planting a new tree is right.  It would be cheaper.  It would be easier.  Point is the Laird wants the one they've got moving, so the one they've got is going to move.  Estates are like that.  Besides there's more fun in trying to move the tree than just popping town to the nursery and sticking a new on in.

 

 

 

I'll base my digging on a 1.8m radius to start off with and see how it goes.  I think we'll probably end up with a smaller root ball to make it liftable, but seems sensible to start off big when seeing how far the roots actually spread.  All my hi-vis jacket are dirty, this might explain why I've never made it into management.

 

 

This is very encouraging, as despite all the good intentions of hand digging and figuring out how it should be done, I have a feeling it may come down to what becomes practical to do on the day.

It will be an interesting project mate.

Keep us updated please.

[Gary Prentice]

On 28/01/2020 at 09:08, Khriss said:

....sorry Gary, am still smirking from the " I personally would hand dig...." comment ?  K

 

 

Okay, okay. Maybe I should have written.... Personally I would get someone to hand dig. 

 

Seriously though, If it was my project, yes I would do enough of the grunt work to make sure that the tree was moved with enough of a viable root ball to become established. I actually like jobs like that.

19 hours ago, Rough Hewn said:

Am I the only one reading this who's thinking..
Cut n chip,
Quick pop down to arb nursery.
Dig hole, water, plant tree.
1 man, 1 day.
Much cheaper.
Or is it a "highly valuable black lime"?

If the tree was just a tree within a group planting or something like that, you'd be right. But avenues are different.

 

The whole point of an avenue is uniformity. They don't provide the same aesthetic impact when there are different varieties/forms/cultivars and ages/sizes. They are very difficult to manage (particularly as hey age and trees are lost through natural causes) Is an avenue of even 50 year trees an avenue when there is new plantings in the mix?

 

It would easier to chuck in a new tree, of similar size, but in this instance I can see where the owners are coming from. The trees the same age as the avenue planting, presumably the same genetically (bit of a bugger after 50 years of growth to see a mismatch in the avenue because the genetics included slower growth rates))

 

Peter Glasser (Sp?) the head forester at Burleigh layered shoots from the collection when he planted a 1/4 mile double row avenue twenty years ago (100's of plants) to ensure that in a hundred years time the new avenue would contain identical matched trees (as far as is humanly practical). 

 

Burleigh has a lot of avenues planted by Capability Brown, Worth a visit just to see how just one different variety of lime spoils the look.