Gardening Notes

a large root ball. If you have some agile, muscled chums at your beck and call, having done the preparatory work yourself, it’s time for a text message or two summoning the troops to help with handling the plant in question out of one hole and into the readily prepared other in the new location.

My first lesson in this technique was in 1960 and it hasn’t changed since. The University of Reading was one of the few at that time to offer a degree course in horticulture. They also had a post-graduate research facility at Shinfield Grange about six miles south of Reading. It was located in a beautiful old house surrounded by 15 acres of parkland which the powers that be decided to convert to a teaching garden for the students.

I was one of a team of five working on the creation of the garden. We bought in many conifers, trees, shrubs and herbaceous perennials, planted them and subsequently nurtured them. It was quite an open site and when work on the garden started several years before, some fastgrowing shrubs were planted close together to provide shelter. When I arrived, the process of thinning them had just started. I’m talking about Deutzia, Philadelphus, Cornus, Weigela and the like, all reaching 6ft in height and proportionately broad. These plants were due to be re-planted elsewhere, doing the same job again where further development was scheduled to start.

In the best ordered circles, the plants due to be moved to a new location would be prepared six months in advance. This entails digging a trench all round the plant to about two spade depths, severing all the major roots in the process. The trench was then filled in again. The reason for this pruning exercise is easily explained. The roots have just been pruned and in the coming months new root growth will be stimulated within the ball of soil so that, when it is eventually lifted, the ball will hold together causing the least amount of stress to the plant. I have to say this technique is especially valuable if you have light sandy soil.

We didn’t have to go through this process at Shinfield because of the nature of the soil, a river valley loam (the river is the Loddon, a tributary of the Thames). The same procedure was followed as already described – bunch the top growth and tie with a piece of rope. Dig a trench and then, setting the spade blade parallel with the ground, gradually slice underneath the root ball from the bottom of the trench until it is severed.

Getting it out of the hole is not as difficult as you might think. We used a piece of tarpaulin about 6ft x 6ft. The shrub is pulled over on to its side and the front edge of the tarpaulin slid underneath. The shrub is then tipped the other way and the front edge of the tarpaulin is pulled out. One stout individual on each corner of the sheet and lift the plant clear of the hole. Nae bother.

To re-plant in the new location simply reverse the process, having prepared the site previously – some organic matter forked in to the bottom of the hole and mixed with the soil to be infilled, together with a handful or two of slow-release fertiliser and finally, after firming, a good watering. Well not quite, a bit of pruning is necessary, removing some of the older growth to reduce the height and help stimulate new growth.

You might have twigged (sorry about that) that the shrubs I mentioned all have a stool formation and therefore no staking is required. Any plants that tend to be top heavy will need staking, though I have to say this is not like planting a bare-root plant, the plants I am discussing will have a heavy ball of soil which is likely to mitigate against damaging wind rock.

My photos are relevant to the foregoing but illustrate a rather smaller set of circumstances.

Transporting a young conifer to the new site