This Chamaecyparis obtusa ‘Nana Gracilis’ is at least 10 years old and 4-1/2 feet tall. It is one of my favourite plants but I wish now that I had planted it about 12 feet away from where it is. I'd be interested in any advice anyone can give me about the likelihood that it would survive being replanted at this stage. I would wait until fall when it is cooler and wetter.
Problem with current position? If the issue is you think it is too close to the contorted filbert well eastern filbert blight is clearing those out of our region at this time. So, the problem is going to solve itself, unless the blight does not find your specimen somehow (it has been doing a pretty good job of making the rounds of contorted filberts down here in Washington).
I wouldn't take out the contorted filbert deliberately but if I thought it was doomed, that would be a different story. Now I've looked up photos of infected branches, I wonder if what I scraped off the tree a few months ago were fungal spots, not scale. I assumed it was scale; something I rid the tree of about 15 years ago. I appreciate you pointing out a potential problem.
Like bronze birch borer it pretty much wrecks affected specimens. Susceptible cultivars of orchard filberts are also apt to be hammered; Oregon State University selected and dispersed resistant kinds of them some time ago in response. However, there is minimal genetic distance between resistance and susceptibility in this instance.
Though I am less inclined now to transplant my Chamaecyparis obtusa ‘Nana Gracilis’, could it be moved successfully? What is the root system like?
The root system will be shaped roughly like a saucer, with a radius approximately equal to the tree's height. It could be moved successfully, IF you had a large enough machine to do it. But for all practical purposes, it couldn't.
Looks like it's at most several feet tall - a contractor that knows how could ball it in burlap and move it to the new spot nearby with maybe a ball cart or heavy tarp. But: you would have to find a contractor willing and able to do this and you would of course have to pay for it. Willing as in agreeing to take time for a job this small and able as in knowing how to do it. Regarding the first aspect I for instance asked a landscape company management(?) employee that lives in my neighborhood about having a couple rain garden holes dug and he replied that "We don't do anything for less than $7,000".
That's $7,000 US funds! Well over $9,000 CAD. I know a local landscaper who would probably move it for much less than that or I could twist the arms of my 2 big sons BUT when I think of the potential damage to the rest of the garden and potential disfigurement or loss of the tree, it just isn't worth it. When I planted quite a few foundation plants 12 to 15 years ago, I really thought I was leaving plenty of space between them but now I'm finding out how often I miscalculated. Thank you Ron and Michael for your advice.
Yep Ron is correct, almost any tree - but not any tree - can be moved if you throw enough money at it. The odds of success decrease the bigger they get though. Some town in the US south spent close to a million to move a huge live oak IIRC, years ago, and it died. OTOH my former sister-in-law's brother, who works as a commodities trader but is merely comfortable by Long Island standards, not stratospherically wealthy, spent what he and his wife said was "thousands" to take a mature Japanese maple with them when they changed houses. The root mass was several feet by several feet. It survived.
The point of my saying Regarding the first aspect I for instance asked a landscape company management(?) employee that lives in my neighborhood about having a couple rain garden holes dug and he replied that "We don't do anything for less than $7,000" was that moving your tree - and doing nothing else on your property at the same time, that made for a bigger, more expensive project - could turn out to be too small of a job for most contractors you might approach. And not that you would automatically be quoted $9000 or more to do just the transplanting. Also, there is no inescapable reason for moving the tree you are showing to result in it or the surrounding setting to get all beat up in the process. Not at all. Again, if you are to move forward on this the main tasks for you are to identify a suitable contractor and get them to pencil you in. Preferably interviewing at least half a dozen, if you do not have one you are happy with already. With all suitable candidates presenting some kind of evidence that they would do it right. Like a portfolio of steps taken by them with transplanting of other specimens. Finally, talking to 6 or more estimators should give you a picture of what the fair market value is for your job. Because if you can get that many to produce quotes some repetition should start to appear. Wherein similar to each other figures are come up with by more than one party.
@Margot — best laid plans and all :) question — how much does a new tree of same name cost size availability delivery and planting? I think everyone has provided valuable input — just wondering if you can get a new tree and what price and time etc.
I've been looking them up online this afternoon. (Iseli Nursery in Oregon is a great resource but I'd have to order one through a local garden centre like Dinter's in Duncan.) They're pretty expensive and very slow growing. I don't have any prices but wouldn't be surprised that one like mine at 4-1/2 feet might cost a few hundred dollars. I am was amazed that Iseli's carries about 29 cultivars of Chamaecyparis obtusa. I have decided to leave the one I wanted to move where it is and keep Harry Lauder's Walking Stick pruned back as necessary. Then, as you suggest, I plan to buy one or more other cultivars in one-gallon pots to plant in the same vicinity.
i agree with earlier replies about the gamble or moving such a nice specimen is there a reliable polite plant nursery over there (like Dinters) that would professional dig up your mature healthy tree (their cost and they can sell it forward) and replace (trade) in your chosen location with a smaller tree of same name? i am not a plant nursery expert tho it seems mature specimens from sites are desirable (often demo sites w mature gardens, plenty of which are in our part of BC)
