080214 - Moving a big Japanese Maple
My wife and I make our living running a wholesale/retail nursery (www.woodscreeknursery.com). Yes, I know selling plants and trees sounds miles off from most of what I Blog about here on Samadhisoft but it’s true - it is what we do to make our money.
One of the specialty things we do is to occasionally rescue Japanese Maples. Today and yesterday, we rescued a large one from a yard in Lake Stevens about 10 miles away and brought it here to our nursery. 
I say, ‘we’ did it but in truth my wife and I just supervised and all of the hard and skilled work was done our friend and business associate Manuel Rodriguez along with the very able assistance of two workers from our nursery; Jesus and Dino.
Along the way, we met a photographer and a reporter from the Herald in Everett, Washington. These two folks came out to do a story for the paper on rescuing Japanese Maples. So, that was a lot of fun for us and great advertising as well.
Everything went well, thanks to the skill of the people involved, and the tree is here now in our nursery safe and sound. Now, I can get back to all that pesky accounting that piled up while I was off in new Zealand.
Cheers!
Tags: Japanese Maple, Japanese Maple rescue, Japanese Maples, Woods Creek Wholesale Nursery
June 22nd, 2008 at 11:47 am
We have a Japanese Maple that was planted next to the house between and sidewalk. The tree is doing very well it is 9 years old and about 12′ in height, and about 6″ in dia. but is spilling on to the walkway and covering the house. I would like to move it to a more sutiable location is this a can do project and if so what good method could be used? _____________________house
4′ from house side walk tree is in center of this area
_______________________side walk
June 22nd, 2008 at 8:53 pm
Robert, it might be do-able. The time of the year to do it is in the dead of winter when all the leaves are off. You’d be well advised to get a professional in to take a look at the situation and evaluate if sufficient access can be gained to the roots for digging and if it can be moved by several strong guys or if equipment will be needed to lift it and if that equipment can gain proper access. I recommend a professional because there’s a lot to it like making sure the root ball is sufficiently large and the roots are cut properly and cleanly. Even with everything optimized and done ‘right’, there’s no guarantees - but it is all way better than chain-sawing an old and beautiful tree. Best of luck with it. If you are in the Seattle area, I can recommend some folks to you. Cheers.