Hardy Tropicals UK

This Cordy is 8ft from its tip to ground level.


2 questions.
If I dug it up to bring it home to my garden, what kind of size is the rootball likely to be, and would it be able to survive the shock..??

no experience of these but at that size you can expect the root mass to be large and heavy, its probably the unwieldyness that will cause the swearing i think...lol

i did two 8foot bamboos a couple of weeks ago, and bust me spade trying to lift it....


big spades and forks needed i would think

might i suggest help from a few friends, a truss might help to,,, good luck

I've heard of many failures to transplant these, even much smaller specimen. In fact I can't seem to recall a single success story ... but my memory isn't what it used to be

Cheers, Barrie.

When digging these out I have found that the roots tend to go down deep, and I've not had much success transplanting them. Young ones have moved OK but large ones have failed.

It looks like you might have a problem too as it appears to be very close to the fence (and some paving?), so you will have difficulty getting a decent size root ball unless you remove the fence panel. My approach would be to dig a deep trench all-round it about 18 to 24 inches away from the trunk and then try to undermine.

It's not the best time of year either to move an evergreen, Spring is probably better.

But having said all that, if you've no other choices you've nothing to lose by giving it a go.

Hope you don't mind me asking, but how much are you paying for it?

If it's cheap then it is worth the gamble.

However, if it's a lot and with Cordyline's poor transplant success then I would say don't bother.

This is not a good idea. I have learned the hard way. mine slowly lost all its leaves over a period of a year and passed away. sometimes when I go into the garden I am reminded. you never get over the loss.

Gentleman

there will now be 1 minutes cyber silence to mark the recent loss

is that the one on the neighbours side of the fence simba??
prob better to move the fence...

It's a gamble, but you never know, it may pay off.

In my experience, Cordylines have a large and deep tap root that is tricky to dig up intact. Other than that though, I've found the root balls themselves to be relatively small. I'm guessing that the tap root is used to give stability to what is quite a tall, spindly tree when mature.

I'ts true that they don't move easy, and you may have missed the best time for doing it this year. If / when you do move it, the advice already given about digging a trench and trying to undermine it seems logical to me. I'd also cut off some of the lower green leaves as a newly transplanted Cordyline with a potetially damaged tap root might not be able to support a full head of leaves.

I've transplanted a 4 foot high Cordyline australis this year without any signs of damage so far. I've kept it well watered, and have not had any browning off of the leaves as yet.

Hope that helps!

To answer some of the Qs...
Yes I know the tap root can be very long in Cordys, having repotted my Dazzler earlier this year I was amazed at the length that had been crammed into a smallish pot.

But worth a gamble?
Well the owner just wants shot of it ASAP, and is prepared to sell for the token price of £1.00 provided I do all the digging and heavy work.

So for the price, of course it is worth a punt, but it means that I would have to write off a Sunday to collect, and if its just going to die, then its not worth the time & effort.

bobbyd44 wrote:is that the one on the neighbours side of the fence simba??
prob better to move the fence...

LOL, no, it isn't the one next door, that one has to be a good 20ft tall now.
But the neighbour's new wife is very appreciative of exotics thankfully.....

I dug out a ten footer this year and its still surviving. However, because it was in my own garden i took about three months digging it out little by little to reduce the shock and also reducing the number of leaves by about 50% over the same period. Even then, when i finally dug under it, a small peice of tap root did snap off, When it was out of the ground i soaked the entire rootball and tap root with a double dose of Palmbooster. It then went into a very large pot/container where it remains to this day. I kept the rootball moist but not soaking wet. It did defoliate to the point where all that was left were about ten new leaf shoots on each of the three branches. I'm confident that it will make a full recovery, as confident as you could be with a cordy. Would i do it again, NO.Taking into account the time scale involved and then the recovery period and the fact that a newly planted cordy will romp away once in the ground i would just plant a new one. If your digging out and planting it in a day my advice would be don't bother. Another factor that i think helped was that here we did not have the greatest of summers and the rain and drizzle kept the entire plant moist. Had we have had a blazing summer i think that would have seen it off .

Simba.
Thats going to knacker you mate, and probably your spade and fork, unless it's only recently been put there, and you'll need a van probably to carry it home in [if its 8ft now you've got to allow for the size of the roots too].
Also, you'll have to get between it and the fence to dig it out properly, and then re plant it when you get it home, and then hope it survives the ordeal.

I reckon you'd be better off getting one smaller, say, around 4-5ft.that will establish quicker any way, and will certainly have lusher looking foliage next year.

Taking all advice into consideration, I have let it go, which wasn't easy to do as it only cost £1.00
But common sense prevails......

Simba you did the right thing, I took advice on these before digging up our garden and potting it up ready to move. Bill on the EPS sold his previous house for a large 7 figure sum and paid a lot of money to have his garden proffesionally moved, included in the were quite a few mature cordys (10ft and over) all slowly deteriorated and died , i left my big ones in the ground but did try to take a couple of 4ft plants with us.... agin no luck.

My experience of moving cordys is different, admittedly not 8 foot ones, but I dug a 5 foot clump of 3 out this late summer stuck it in a pot and it hasn't batted an eyelid. I've replanted 4 and 5 leaf seedlings with no roots after the wife ripped them out thinking they were grass. These are remarkably resillent.

It seems from the summed experience it is the leaf mass that is a problem and while some plants self shed, I don't think Cordys do, and the stress of losing a lot of roots with what amounts to masses of leaves is too much for the plant to stand and it slowly starves to death. However if you cut all the leaves off and all the roots off, they will reroot from the stem. If they survive the Thai log treatment then they must be able to survive transplanting provided you remove enough leaves. I think people are in too much of a hurry and just move the plant, hoping for instant impact. I would remove all but a handful of leaves, let it settle in and grow new leaves when it is ready.

Simba, for a quid, I'd have cut all the leaves off and just cut the trunk at ground level. Stored it over winter and tried a huge Thai Log in a pot next spring. After all it is only the same price as a potted bedding plant