Transplanting my Buerre's

Hello folks, I have recently been given the chance to move from my present plot to a better situated plot on the same site. Much more sunlight will be available to me and I'm hoping for a much better all round crop in 2013. My question is age old and yet here I am asking for advice anyway. I have two young hardy Buerre pear trees and I wonder if it will be possible to transplant these to my new site without upsetting the trees. They have both been in situ for four years and have produced lovely pears for the past two. Thank-you for your time.

 

Wait til they've properly shut down for winter if you can, which should be any time now. Then I reckon they'll move without too much trouble.

You might nit get fruit off them next year, because there is no way to avoid damaging the roots, and the trees will have to work on healing that up in the first half of next year, but they should settle in as long as you keep them watered next spring and summer if by any remote chance we get a nice warm dry spell.

 

I agree best time is now , if possible use a huge plastic sheet and undercut them.

Dig out a trench about 18 inches from the trunk in a circle, any large roots cut through cleanly try and dig the trench same depth once all dug out cut out straight underneath the tree go around till its all cut out , then wriggle the plastic sheet under and tie all around the trunk you should either be able to lift the whole tree out and put in a wheel barrow pre-prepare the new planting hole so its all ready you will need to stake it as well .

Hope I have described enough ? basically you are root balling the tree

Spruce

 

Thank-you clueless1 and Spruce, seems sound advice to me...root balling it is

 

It seems to me that conventional wisdom is to "stamp" the soil down when they are replanted so they are firmly anchored. I am on heavy clay, so this may not be relevant to others, but it seems to me that the plants that I have planted "loose", with no "stamping" - not even any "treading down" - have got away fastest. Nice "fluffy" soil to grow their roots into.

I would put in two stakes, either side of the tree and NOT through its rootball, and then nail a cross-bar to that, and tie the tree to the crossbar. Then fill the gap between rootball and the outside of their new planting hole you dug with some "fluffy" stuff to make the new root growth easy. Of course the plant won't get any anchorage from that, so hopefully its roots will grow outside the planting hole but until then it needs the support to stop it getting rocked about in the wind.