FREE online courses on Vegetable Gardening - Pruning - Preparing Shrub

 

The best time to transplant a shrub is when it's dormant (mid-autumn to early spring).

But we recommend easing the shock of transplanting by preparing the shrub a couple of months prior to moving it.

• First, trim back the shrub's branches by about a third. That's to reduce the amount of foliage the plant has to support.
• Second, Tie the branches up into a tight bundle to give you room for the third step.
• Third, cut the longer roots in a circle around the shrub roughly equal to the spread of the branches after you trimmed them back.

 

To cut the roots, just dig down in a circle around the plant, pushing in a square-nosed shovel every six inches or so.

 

The idea is to encourage the shrub to send out new, shorter roots that will develop into a nice root ball by the time you're ready to transplant.

 

Be sure to untie the shrub after you're done cutting the roots!

 

To finalize preparations for transplanting, water the shrub thoroughly a couple days beforehand to get the rootball moist.

 

And for a quick transplant, you should probably dig a hole for the shrub in its new home BEFORE you actually move it. You don't want it sitting out of the ground too long.