Transplanting 40 year old beech.

[Mark Bolam]

Looks great from my house!

[Doug Tait]

Be interested to know how it was done. Any pics?

[MattyF]

I’d give it another year yet! I’ve found they really don’t like being moved even as  8-10ft trees to the point where they will still die a year later, I dug up 6 a few years back and out of them 1 survived and they where all dormant when moved. 

[dumper]

Need to wait a couple of years before you will really know 

[peds]

1 hour ago, Mrblue5000 said:

 it has survived the ordeal.

You don't know that yet. It could take years to die.

[dumper]

Would benefit from a bit of tlc, good mulch and maybe bit of irrigation.

[dumper]

Would be interested to see picture of move ,how big a root plate did it have?,Did you clean cut the roots? What size rootball did you get? 

[Mrblue5000]

1 hour ago, dumper said:

Would be interested to see picture of move ,how big a root plate did it have?,Did you clean cut the roots? What size rootball did you get? 

Sorry I don’t think I have a picture of the root ball but it was approximately 2.5m diameter. I think what helped it a lot was that it was cut back hard in September about 8 months before the move. There was very little leaf on it when we moved it. Also it has been raining steadily here since the move.

However there was a delay of about 6 weeks between digging it out and replanting it, so peds could still be correct! 

[Muddy42]

A few months ago I moved two ornamental maples.  They are about 20 years old and about 1 foot in diameter. We used a 16 tonne digger to dig out each root ball and hoisting them up with chains and straps and into a logic quad trailer.  I pulled them off the quad with a tractor.  The trailer nearly collapsed and one of the tyres burst.  What a pallava, I can't conceive of how anyone would attempt such a thing for a tree that must be 10/20 times heavier?

[peds]

3 minutes ago, Mrblue5000 said:

 

However there was a delay of about 6 weeks between digging it out and replanting it, so peds could still be correct! 

 

I mean fair play to you for trying to give it another chance, I'm 100% in favour of keeping trees alive if at all possible,  so fingers crossed. Was the cost of moving it less than a fairly established tree bought new?

 

Best thing you can now do is to sheet mulch it, in this order, with a big pile of high-tide-line rotting seaweed, then a decent handful of chicken pellets or half a bag of manure, then 3 layers of brown cardboard, and bark or woodchip. 

 

Fingers crossed it'll bounce back, and hopefully some of those pruning wounds will develop into nice rot pockets for creepy crawlies to live in and Robins to nest in.

 

Keep it watered, and keep us updated 👍