Garden transplanting is a wonderful necessity

Stephen Jones

OSU Exten­sion Mas­ter Gar­dener Intern

Delaware County

With sum­mer in the rear view mir­ror, a chill in the air, and a blush of color to the foliage of our decid­u­ous trees, it is time to begin tying the loose ends in your gar­den before the end of the sea­son. It seems that no mat­ter how well-laid a gar­den plan is, every year there is at least one plant that needs to be trans­planted. Not get­ting enough morn­ing sun, not get­ting enough after­noon shade, fill­ing out more than expected, etc. Vari­ables that some­times sim­ply are not appar­ent until the plant has lived in the spot for a sea­son. While some­times frus­trat­ing, trans­plant­ing in a gar­den is actu­ally a won­der­ful neces­sity that keeps the flow of the gar­den fresh and inter­est­ing. After all, the unknown is half the fun in gar­den­ing any­way. One of the trou­bles with trans­plant­ing is the tim­ing. Often the deci­sion is made in high sum­mer that a par­tic­u­lar plant needs to move, how­ever this is a ter­ri­ble time for trans­plant­ing. Then in the ideal trans­plant­ing win­dow, mid-autumn, when most of us are not in the gar­den every day it eas­ily slips the mind. With a few key spec­i­fi­ca­tions, trans­plant­ing suc­cess is quite attainable.

First of all, it is impor­tant to be real­is­tic with your­self that the more estab­lished a plant is, the more dan­ger there is involved with trans­plant­ing. For the most part, shrubs and small peren­ni­als are eas­ier to trans­plant than trees. The dif­fi­culty in trans­plant­ing trees is when the tree is estab­lished in your land­scape (more than two years), it will likely only be trans­planted with 25 per­cent or less of its’ root sys­tem. The odds of sur­vival are not impos­si­ble — but also not in your favor. Trees pur­chased from nurs­eries have had their root sys­tems care­fully pruned and manip­u­lated so at time of orig­i­nal plant­ing from nurs­ery to ground they have about 75 per­cent of the root sys­tem intact. Trans­plant­ing trees can be done in early spring, before the buds begin to swell. Spring trans­plant­ing can be dif­fi­cult in Ohio because of our unpre­dictable weather. Our frost-free date is not until May 15 which is already too late in the sea­son con­sid­er­ing the extreme heat that can be just around the cor­ner as well. This year it was in the high 80s-low 90s Memo­r­ial Day week­end — too hot for a fresh trans­plant. For our grow­ing area, fall trans­plant­ing is ideal.

Although our weather in the fall can also be unpre­dictable, the risk of the ground thaw­ing and refreez­ing and killing a root sys­tem is far less likely. The time to trans­plant in the fall is when most of the leaves have fallen.

Now that you have assessed the risk and decided the right day for the trans­plant, there are a few details that make all the dif­fer­ence. First of all, it is best to trans­plant in the morn­ing. Even though the sun does not feel par­tic­u­larly warm on our skin right now, it can still be enough to shock the plant in the process of the trans­plant. Another imper­a­tive detail is water­ing the plant thor­oughly before, dur­ing and after the trans­plant. You want the root sys­tem to stay com­pletely sat­u­rated. While the sci­ence is not the same, think of an ocean mam­mal like a dol­phin that has become beached. The ele­ment most cru­cial to the dolphin’s sur­vival is keep­ing the skin above water hydrated. Roots above ground are a sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tion. They are hyper­sen­si­tive to the light and this is where most trans­plants fail. A suc­cess­ful trans­plant should be done in a mat­ter of min­utes. The new hole needs to be dug and sat­u­rated before remov­ing the plant from its cur­rent posi­tion. It may need extra water through the end of the sea­son and clear­ing exces­sive snow cover from it cer­tainly is a good idea in the winter.

Although a trans­plant can some­times be a roll of the dice, there are def­i­nite ways to improve the odds of enjoy­ing an older plant in a new set­ting. That being said, do not let the some­times daunt­ing thought of a trans­plant stop you from rear­rang­ing your gar­den. Gar­dens are a year round project that are con­stantly chang­ing. If a par­tic­u­lar plant is not work­ing in its orig­i­nal spot, it is bet­ter to try and save it with a trans­plant, than watch it under per­form for years and never truly enjoy it.

Editor’s note: There are two cor­rec­tions from this past Saturday’s Dig in with the Mas­ter Gar­den­ers City of Delaware Tree Inventory.

It was noted in the orig­i­nal arti­cle that the writer rec­om­mended plant­ing Japan­ese lilac trees and ser­vice­ber­ries under power lines. The writer rec­om­mends plant­ing Ivory Silk Japan­ese lilac trees when there is after­noon shade, but he no longer rec­om­mends plant­ing ser­vice­ber­ries. Also, the Emer­ald Ash Borer (EAB) has already impacted the value of the city’s urban for­est by about $1 mil­lion, and the final loss is expected to be $1.3 million.