How easy is it to transplant a Monkey Puzzle Tree?

[GoggleboxUK]

After seeing Hups say he'd have one of these in Jris' 'If money was no object' thread I started looking for one. It's my mum's favourite plant and it's her birthday this week.

At first I couldn't beieve how expensive a decent sized one is but, after some searching, I've located a 7 footer in my local area.

How easy are these to dig out and transplant? Any advice will be very helpful.

Thanks.

[Tessa]

Step 1: Purchase suit of armour, Hazmat gloves, miners helmet and welders face mask.
Step 2: Pray.
Step 3: Cut off lowest braches and KEEP LOW to the ground and DIG! Pray some more. Dig. Pray... etc.
Step 4: Have 3 friends, also donning similar apparel, transport the beast, lower into predug hole/pot. Backfill hole.
Step 5: Stand back and admire one fantastic plant and await screams of joy from Mum.

YOU are one brave and cool son/daughter!

~ Tess (Who has a 3yo granddaughter so no Monkey Puzzle Tree.)

[Chad]

It has been done before, but as suggested above it isn’t easy. They have a deep anchoring tap root and resent it being interfered with.

Aim to take a hemispherical root ball that is roughly the same width as the branches extend to. It does have the ability to ‘break’ from old wood, so I would expect it to be able to make new roots too. It will need a firm stake to stop it rocking out initially, and will need watering properly [not often but deeply] for probably two years rather than the one that a broad leafed tree would need.

Here is a professional answer from The University of British Columbia.

Chad.

[Conifers]

after some searching, I've located a 7 footer in my local area.

One that big, you're going to need a tree spade. Not feasible by hand - the root system will be too wide-spreading (probably around 2 metres radius from the trunk, and down to 50-60cm deep). If you did it by hand, you'd lose so much of the root system that survival chances would be very low. When you buy a specimen that size at a nursery, it will have been prepared 2-3 years in advance with root pruning to establish a dense root system close in to the trunk; an open-grown specimen won't have that.

[Chad]

I think Conifer's answer is better than mine.

Chad.

[GoggleboxUK]

Thanks very much for the helpful responses.

I'm in 2 minds about trying now. I believe I'd have to take as much soil along with the roots as possible to avoid the tree going into shock so it's going to be very heavy to move too.

Mind you, at £40 it might be worth the gamble.

[Tessa]

Thanks very much for the helpful responses.

I'm in 2 minds about trying now. I believe I'd have to take as much soil along with the roots as possible to avoid the tree going into shock so it's going to be very heavy to move too.

Mind you, at £40 it might be worth the gamble.

Geeez! £40! For a 7ft Monkey Puzzle! B-A-R-G-A-I-N! You'd expect to pay that for a 2ft'er! I saw a 4' or so footer at a local garden centre and it was £100. on sale 1/2 price! Let us know how it goes. Bristol Zoo has a lovely 15ft near the tortoise area that we all admired a couple weeks back. Fab plants in the right garden. Not my garden though.

~ Tess

[Ste]

£40 is a steal. They are on sale at a GC near me around a foot to 14 inch and they are £36

[GoggleboxUK]

It's a great deal, no doubt about it but it's going to take some careful digging and a lot of ducking and dodging. Then there's the fragility of it once out and the safe transportation.

I'll talk to my brother about it and see what he thinks.

[Yorkshire Kris]

£40 is an amazing bargain IF you can physically get it out , transferred to your mums and not let it die otherwise its £40 down the drain, a day wasted and an unhappy mum with a dead tree that would need replacing....

They are cracking trees and very common in peoples gardens almost all round here are fully grown, tall as a house.

[Nigel]

If it survives maybe you will get some of these.
Yummmmmmmm tonight I am going to roast some,just like roast chestnuts.

[GoggleboxUK]

Wow, that looks like a Teenage Mutant Ninja Hedgehog!

[Yorkshire Kris]

Nigel, I've seen loads of the cones all over the place in the past, never new they were edible?

[cordyman]

My Mum transplants a 4 foot one to her garden from a friends and no issues whatsoever.

[GoggleboxUK]

My Mum transplants a 4 foot one to her garden from a friends and no issues whatsoever.

Any idea what method she used Cordy?