Moving a 400' hedge row

[TCBoomer]

Last fall I had a thread about my missing property pin and the possibility of me moving some of my Arborvitaes. As much as I appreciated the suggestions of not moving them, I thought long and hard and have decided to do it. I was hoping to get it done over the winter, but the amount of snow mother nature dumped here put that plan on hold.

I'm only concerned with moving the newer trees this year... 100 of them ~12' tall as the remainder are over 20' tall. I removed all the mulch...40 large bags worth lol...and cut the sod for 300'. We dug the trench yesterday, so today I need to collect the potatoes (rocks) we harvested and clean up the trench a little. Then I need to tie up the branches like they do with Xmas trees and I'll be ready to start. Doubt I'll move any today as I'm working alone for now. My tree guy will be back when I need him.

I took a few pics yesterday, but they don't really give a true indication of the size of this project. I'll take more today and hopefully better ones as well. If there's any interest in seeing this project in detail...speak up

Well I'm out the door in a few and prepared for a full days work...I have about 11 hrs of daylight in front of me and I intend to use every bit of it!

 

[sixdogs]

Yes there's an interest in photos...I was wondering how this turned out. If you are moving with a tree spade there is no need to tie up the branches. Even with a backhoe, you break a few but they grow back. Most important is that they need lots of water.
What's the plan? How's the neighbor? Have it surveyed?

 

[TCBoomer]

We're going to hold off with the tree spade for now and I'll explain why--shortly.

Neighbor is still a twit at times, otherwise no problem...so far. I've said nothing to him about moving the trees yet, but I'm sure he knows something is going on based on his/her previous nosiness. Since the trees block them out for the most part, haven't really seen or spoken with him since last fall. But that will change pretty soon as I need to access his side of the trees with my tractor. Doubt he'll deny me but one never knows...

Yes I had another survey done for that property line. Good thing too, because what I thought was a boundary pin midway down the line, was actually just a control point she set. I thought it was odd that a control point would have surveyor ID markings, but she said it's not uncommon. All said and done, I now have 3 clear proper pin locations set for that boundary and the trees are in fact 8" off the line (my side) from end to end. I'm not going to bother wasting my time seeking any reimbursement from the neighbor. All I want is for these people to leave me alone and respect my property, which I'll do the same. Once the trees are moved, he'll have no reason to whine about his parking being limited and I'll be in a position to 'fight fire with fire' if need be.

Here's the plan...

I'm moving the trees over 28" so that the trunk sits a full 36" off the line, or an inch or 2 more depending...
What we found is the trees are only rooted down about a foot and with no tap root, they should move quite easily--according to my tree guy. The trench was cut 28" from the drip line, which leaves just over 24" of root ball intact on the outsides of the trees. In between the trees will only be 18" of root ball since they're spaced 36" apart, and should be fine as well...I hope lol.

I'll cut the roots with a spade shovel and then pop them loose with the pallet forks I just bought. It'll be a trial and error journey, but in theory it should work and my guy agrees. I'll pop them loose on my side first, then go around to the neighbors driveway side. I'll plant the forks perpendicular to the grade in the spade shovel cut and work the rest of the tree loose. Then if all goes as planned---using the forks, I'll push the tree over the 28" and up against the trench wall. Obviously getting a straight line again will be critical, but a string line will insure that along with eyesight. Hopefully that all made sense? I'm not actually lifting the tree out of the hole, just sliding it over 28"

I'll tie up about 6 trees at a shot so I have working room between them to cut the roots and then as I move over a tree or 2, I'll have room to haul the fill dirt from my side over to the neighbors to fill in the void...likely by hand with a 5 gal bucket. Compact as best as I can and water them good!!! Repeat that routine until I move all 100...uggg!! lol

Pics to follow...

 

[sixdogs]

Sure wish you could use a tree spade. Have plan B if he doesn't want you on his ground since that's a good guess.
Good luck, take lots of pictures for us and let's not see you on "News At Eleven". We're rootin' for you.

 

[TCBoomer]

300' of sod line cut
made quick work of stripping it off and not tearing up the lawn

 

[sixdogs]

That is a nice looking job.

 

[TCBoomer]

Here's what my guy used to rip up the sod and cut the trench. A 600 series Cub and worked perfectly. It was a total PITA for me though, because digging at the drip line required the machine to be tight against the trees. And every couple trees I had to hold back the branches so the outrigger could be set between them. Did this routine twice the entire length. 1st to rip the sod out and then again to cut the trench. Ended up with a huge pile of sod and soil which I'll put to good use

 

[TCBoomer]

I mentioned harvesting potatoes...Not too bad considering it's CT

One pic shows the largest one we found in the trench line, however when I put in the lawn yrs ago, I found a few as big as a VW Bug
Another shows the pile that resulted. I'll sort out the useable field stone and dump the rest over the bank.

4 bucket loads and my NH handled it easily, though had to keep it low and slow



>>>need to figure out how to add pics inline sometime and then add a caption to each pic<<<

 

[TCBoomer]

couple more random shots...300' is a long trench!!

Didn't get much done yesterday other than pick up all the rocks. Something came up and required my presence

I hope to have the trench cleaned up during the week and start moving trees this coming weekend. Rain last night and again this evening so that will keep the tree roots watered for now.

 

[TCBoomer]

Sure wish you could use a tree spade. Have plan B if he doesn't want you on his ground since that's a good guess.
Good luck, take lots of pictures for us and let's not see you on "News At Eleven". We're rootin' for you.

I know what you mean but my guy is confident the forks will work fine. 2 concerns with the tree spade is tight working area with the 3' spacing and then the rocks. Quite a few of what we removed were located where a tree would land. Easier to trench it all and see what we're working with and also to see how deep the roots grew.

Plan B is similar to A, only I'll use my tractor to pull them over instead of pushing. If that won't work, the tree spade will be used. Either way I'm moving these trees and my guy has all the confidence in me to be successful. In fact he even told me if anyone else---he'd be hesitant to advise them to do it. I'm a determined individual and very confident with my abilities and he agrees, so here I go

The neighbor has never forbid me from edge trimming on his side of the trees and in fact when I put in the lawn on that side, I used his driveway to remove my hay bales/silt fence from his front yard line. So hopefully he'll have no issues with taking my tractor down his driveway again. And considering I've kept my cool in spite of all his shenanigans, probably puts this situation in my favor. Besides, the end result will allow his visitor parking with out my tree limbs encroaching the space.

Last pic for now...my new pallet forks
These things are sweet!!

 

[TCBoomer]

Question about pic size...

it's been a while since I've posted online pics anywhere and if I put alot of pics here for this task, I'd like to be certain the size is manageable. Are they to big a file size? If so, what size should I reduce to?

All I'm doing is transferring them from my phone to LT and then posting. The transfer seems to take awhile uploading to TBN. Maybe it's the file size or just my lousy DSL service...or both

 

[sixdogs]

Yeah, rocks...sort of goes with New England. Your trench looks professional and very well done.
How long will it take you to transplant?

Yes, your photo file size is too big. I just kept reducing mine in size until they loaded quicker. I make mine 20% of the size they were beforehand.

 

[srs]

Question about pic size... Are they to big a file size? If so, what size should I reduce to?

The pics for me cover the whole monitor plus when I hit the "+" button on the picture it goes supersize. This is on my Desktop Mac. Download time for me is relatively quick, I too have DSL which is good here in my part of town. I'm thinking you could make the pictures a little smaller to see what others have to say. Just my 2 cents.

Hopefully when this project is done you won't have any issues with your neighbor, so unfortunate for you. Stanley

 

[TCBoomer]

How long? Good question as I honestly don't know until I start moving them. Once I get a rhythm going I'll know better. I'm hoping within a couple/few weeks, but the real time killer will be moving that material to the other side of the trees. It'll be a heck of a workout for sure, but I'm up for it.

Thanks for the pic size info, I'll resize them next time

 

[TCBoomer]

The pics for me cover the whole monitor plus when I hit the "+" button on the picture it goes supersize. This is on my Desktop Mac. Download time for me is relatively quick, I too have DSL which is good here in my part of town. I'm thinking you could make the pictures a little smaller to see what others have to say. Just my 2 cents.

Hopefully when this project is done you won't have any issues with your neighbor, so unfortunate for you. Stanley

Yep full screen here as well which made me think too big. I'll correct it next time. My DSL service is lame sometimes...I think it's the router. But now I notice the lag is just TBN. Every page or refresh is slow. Any where else I visit is ok. TBN used to have a query about load times on the bottom of the page, but I don't see it anymore. Be interesting to see the load time right now

edit...found the load time at the top of the page and it says 0.02 seconds...no way as I counted 18 seconds before it loaded. So at least that confirms part of the delay I'm having,

 

[woodlandfarms]

Fir trees are best transplanted in the fall. Through the winter the roots will do there thing even though the tree is not growing. As you are doing this in the spring you need to make sure you water a lot. I would plan on a 20% loss at least. Some trees just are not going to be happy. Also you might want to consider a way to get water to the deep. In la they put 3" PVC pipe from ground level down to the bottom of the hole for large tree transplants. Fill the tube gets water to roots that would not nornpmally get it.

 

[sixdogs]

Those are american arborvitae and he's in Connecticutt where it's cool and rains a lot. Plus he's got thin gravel soil and water soaks right in. If he keep them wet and puts some fertilizer ouside the drip line he won't lose one of them. I've moved many of these in similar New England conditions and can't recall ever losing even one. And that's before I discovered tree spades and pretty much ripped trees out of the ground with a backhoe. Spring is the right time in New England.

 

[TCBoomer]

Fir trees are best transplanted in the fall. Through the winter the roots will do there thing even though the tree is not growing. As you are doing this in the spring you need to make sure you water a lot. I would plan on a 20% loss at least. Some trees just are not going to be happy. Also you might want to consider a way to get water to the deep. In la they put 3" PVC pipe from ground level down to the bottom of the hole for large tree transplants. Fill the tube gets water to roots that would not nornpmally get it.

Wow...20% loss?
Maybe I'm a bit overly optimistic, but my expectations are more like 0% loss. I say this with confidence for 2 reasons:

1) The original 100 (now 20'+ tall)that were planted back in 96 were field grown transplants that were planted in May. They were about 3' tall and I didn't lose any of them. I watered them faithfully, in fact probably more than your average person would do. I remember 3 of them were kind of lazy growing for the first few yrs, but they survived and caught up with the others eventually.

2) My tree guy (36 yrs exp) runs the local tree farm and nursery and is confident these will survive without any concerns. He and his crew planted the second group (200) in 2007 and has always commented on how well they've grown. We only lost one from that planting (a year later) and that was due to the competition from one of the mature 20' 'ers. Apparently the mature tree sucked all the moisture and nutrients from the immediate area and the new planting just dried up and died. He replaced it and since then I make sure to water it more than the others. It's doing great now...5 yrs later. The soil is about as good as it gets as this property used to be farm land/pasture and the top soil is over a foot deep. Drains well also. Full sunlight from dawn to dusk and an abundance of rain is typical here in the springtime. Rain or not I do plan on watering them as well.

I do appreciate the concern though so thanks for the input.

 

[TCBoomer]

Those are american arborvitae and he's in Connecticutt where it's cool and rains a lot. Plus he's got thin gravel soil and water soaks right in. If he keep them wet and puts some fertilizer ouside the drip line he won't lose one of them. I've moved many of these in similar New England conditions and can't recall ever losing even one. And that's before I discovered tree spades and pretty much ripped trees out of the ground with a backhoe. Spring is the right time in New England.

Thanks for the confidence boost as I can always use it

Everything is falling into place as I type this. Weather forecast is perfect other than one day and I'm ready for the serious work in front of me. The icing on the cake is my employer is allowing me to take a week off to do this...or at least try and get it done . I have to work tomorrow and then off Thurs for a week. Friday is supposed to rain, so if it does I may go into to work, but after that I'm golden.:thumbsup: I'll take plenty of pics along the way, but be patient until I post them. I plan on giving this every ounce of effort I have including working late with spot lights if I can see well enough. By the end of the day I may only have enough left in me to shower and hit the sack so that I can get up at the crack of dawn and have at it again. Some of you may think I'm nutz...probably am, but trust me it takes this kind of thinking in order to pull this off successfully.

 

[sixdogs]

Watch out for big winds that might catch the row sideways and blow things over. I used to not water when big winds were expected.
The cedar is all roots in a mass and all are near the surface and not very wide. Trees will look scraggly the first year or two and seem like they are not doing well because the roots need to bulk up again to support the tree. So the tree suffers. Hence the fertilizer as well as the water when it's dry in the summer. All your top growth will be done pretty early in the season but the roots will keep growing, especially in the fall and early winter/spring when temps are in the 50ish area.

I'm still in favor of a second row of $1.70 seedlings in front of the first and spaced 4' off the row. plant with a spud bar or seedling tool and do this month. Will make things look better and quicker even if you cut the seedings down in ten years or sell to someone else.

The cedar is the perfect border tree.