Moving Garden Plants
Why should plants be moved? The most likely reasons........
Herbaceous Plants: Moving plants is an essential part of good gardening. Herbaceous plants and many grasses need to be split periodically as a means of rejuvenating them and improving their flowering. Splitting plants makes them more easy to move around the garden, it is also part of any propagation based upon plant division.
I'm a great believer that any plant should be moved if it is not in the 'right location'.
 Poor location: The 'right location' will depend on several factors including: light, shade, soil and drainage all of which will have a bearing on a plant's health. One other factor often overlooked is the proximity of one plant to other specific plants, for example conifers will often kill neighbouring plants due to the poisons that leech through their roots systems. Another example are various cistus shrubs which do not like being 'crowded' by neighbouring plants being too close.
Poor health: Any of the above might show the observant gardener that a specific plant is not altogether happy for whichever reason. If the problem persists the plant should be lifted in order to check the health of its root system (which could be rotting) and moved to a new location that would better suit the plant.
Moving house: Moving house is perhaps the most fundamental reason for moving any plant. When we moved to Winsford Walled Garden we brought approximately ten tonnes of potted plants in four seperate trips in a Luton van over one exhausting weekend. Some plants arrived in pots, others in hession sacks but the majority arrived in plastic bags, while over 200 Fuchsia cultivars arrived in hanging baskets! We know about moving plants.
Personal choice: One of the most likely reasons a perfectly heathy plant will be moved is simply because the gardener does not like its present location.
Poor Labelling: Every gardener has purchased a plant which has behaved (for whatever reason) differently to what was originally intended as described on the plant label. Perhaps it was red instead of blue. The phormium photographed in this article grows to four feet according to the original plant label. This morning I witnessed one nursery offering Clerodenron bungei which according to their description apparently grows to four feet in height, yet my own examples must be over eight feet high! Imagine a gardener purchasing the plant and putting it in front of an existing six foot plant....... next year it will have to be moved.
 When to move your garden plants and why
The best time to move a garden plant is late autumn. From mid-November onwards is ideal in my opinion and the reasons are many:
Generally speaking the ground is often much drier and easier to walk upon in November than it is in February or March. The soil structure is much less likely to be damaged if the ground is drier.
By late autumn the plant is no longer growing and is ready for its 'winter sleep'. The sap is not moving around the plant as it does in spring time, so that any incisions or tearing of root systems result in less damage.
Not only is the plant hibernating for the winter, but in addition so too are the many invasive soil organisms that could enter the plant through any open wound caused through relocation which could cause plant infection.
If you relocate your plants during November, they will have time to heal their wounds during the winter before rising spring tempertures encourage the plants into spring growth.
If you move your plants in springtime the inevitable and unavoidable root damage that results WILL set back a plant by forcing it to spend energy on necessary cell repair instead of normal spring growth.
How best to move your plants
In my experience there is no better method of moving any size of plant other than by making an incision all around it. In almost every case the depth of your spade will be sufficient. The big question is how big a circle do you make? You make it as big as the the tools at your disposal allow. You make the incision as big as you can lift into a wheelbarrow. For most herbaceous plants which are being relocated or split in their third year the diameter is about two feet or 60cms. This will fill a wheelbarrow.
If you make it bigger; a) you are unlikely to lift it b) if you do manage to lift such a large plant the root ball will tear itself apart.
Support the root ball as much as practical in order to prevent excessive damage due to the root weight tearing itself apart.
Even using a neighbour's minidigger for the large phormium pictured the plant weight was supported by the blue rope because the attached root ball was larger than the digger's bucket! The extra support also prevented the foliage from overbalancing and pulling the plant out of the digger's bucket.
In many cases, if the the complete root ball is transfered the plant is barely affected and proceeds as if nothing had happened!
Watering
I do not water a plant if it's moved in November. The plant is in 'hibernation', and all too often a plant does not have any leaves which would cause any evaporation stress. Generally speaking, a plant tends to be happier if it is on the dry side when it's cold, inevitably it will rain sooner rather than later at this time of year.
Conversely, if you are ever compelled to move a plant during the warmer months then you can hardly give it too much water. We moved our ten tonnes of potted plants at the end of June, possibly the worst time to move any plants, yet we didn't lose a single plant.
The importance of a large root ball can not be overstated. An insufficiently small root ball will not provide the root system that can actually absorb sufficient moisture for the plant's needs irrespective of how much water is provided.
Ensure the root ball is kept moist at all times. It is very stressfull for a plant to have periods of alternating desert-like and bog-like compost.
Equally important and a fact that is often overlooked even with new plants..... After a plant is planted in its permanent location and watered-in for the first time, DO NOT then ignore it. Keep an eye on it and make sure it does not suffer unduly on hot days.
On the 7th of December, 2006, the UK suffered from gusting winds upto 70mph. The following morning when the picture below was taken, showed the recently planted phormium on the right, didn't suffer at all.
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