Can I move large leylandii?
Discussion
Hello,
Before anyone starts with the 'leylandii are evil' etc etc please don't - We live in the middle of nowehere, and want to make a screen at the end of the garden with leylandii. There are no neighbours nearby who will be affected, and I am aware how large and fast they grow (this is why we are using them).
I have already planted a row of 6ft plants, but I'm impatient and want the hedge to be 20ft right now without having to wait.
My neighbour has some 20ft (or thereabouts) leylandii plants that he was going to chop down. Is there any way I can uproot them and replant them in my garden, or are they too big to start moving? It just seems like a waste if he's chopping them down whilst I'm trying to grow them!
Thanks in advance.
Before anyone starts with the 'leylandii are evil' etc etc please don't - We live in the middle of nowehere, and want to make a screen at the end of the garden with leylandii. There are no neighbours nearby who will be affected, and I am aware how large and fast they grow (this is why we are using them).
I have already planted a row of 6ft plants, but I'm impatient and want the hedge to be 20ft right now without having to wait.
My neighbour has some 20ft (or thereabouts) leylandii plants that he was going to chop down. Is there any way I can uproot them and replant them in my garden, or are they too big to start moving? It just seems like a waste if he's chopping them down whilst I'm trying to grow them!
Thanks in advance.
tters to kill off so you may be lucky with chopping the roots shorter.
The advantage will be the root mass should make for fast growth next spring. Its going to be a ball ache staking and watering in the meantime.
Agreed conifers are among the most difficult tress to move because unlike deciduous tress they don't have a dormant period so typically they just die. Also bear in mind that although you are impatient a hedge grown with young trees ultimately makes a far better i.e. thicker hedge so if I were you I'd get some 4' trees and plant them.
IMHO you don't have a hope I'm afraid.
They are water suckers and spread out a wide mass of roots which expand to meet the needs of the tree.
If they are 20 ft high to have any chance of it staying alive you will need to take a chuck of soil and roots that are *at least* 6ft square - and even then you will be leaving a huge amount of the smaller water grabbing roots and any root ball would need to grow new ones so even if survived a year it would be severely disabled in growth.
If yours are 6ft high they have just got to the 'tipping point' where the branch mass is big enough to accelerate growth.
To give you an idea, 4ft high trees I got 3 years ago I have just checked on a photo of last spring were 7 ft at their tallest and gave a pretty much opaque screen up to 4 ft.
As of today the tallest are 14ft high and there is an opaque screen up to at least 6ft in just 18 months.
So, my recommendation would be to have patience my friend - your screen will come!
If you want to accelerate growth a long term feed will help. Even better than that I found that putting down a semi permeable membrane and bark on top around the base of the tree really stops the drought during summer months and has aided growth a lot.
They are water suckers and spread out a wide mass of roots which expand to meet the needs of the tree.
If they are 20 ft high to have any chance of it staying alive you will need to take a chuck of soil and roots that are *at least* 6ft square - and even then you will be leaving a huge amount of the smaller water grabbing roots and any root ball would need to grow new ones so even if survived a year it would be severely disabled in growth.
If yours are 6ft high they have just got to the 'tipping point' where the branch mass is big enough to accelerate growth.
To give you an idea, 4ft high trees I got 3 years ago I have just checked on a photo of last spring were 7 ft at their tallest and gave a pretty much opaque screen up to 4 ft.
As of today the tallest are 14ft high and there is an opaque screen up to at least 6ft in just 18 months.
So, my recommendation would be to have patience my friend - your screen will come!
If you want to accelerate growth a long term feed will help. Even better than that I found that putting down a semi permeable membrane and bark on top around the base of the tree really stops the drought during summer months and has aided growth a lot.
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