Transplanting Trees

[brian6715]

Me wife and I are in the process of buying our first house, which is located in Rice County (Shieldsville area). The yard is rather bare, the front yard has no tree cover at all. I want to plant a "row" of trees along the driveway and possibly another row on my side of the ditch. I want the trees to grow fast, but not be messy (no willows, walnuts, oaks, etc).

I have access to some Maple trees that are growing in my grandma's woods. I am not sure what kind they are, but I could find out. They are young and seem really healthy and straight. From my research it seems like now is the time to transplant, but we won't close on the house until the end of May.

Should I go out to the trees now and cut a circle around the roots?

What size tree is best? I heard the smaller will do better (obviously) and they will grow faster, but I don't want to start with a tiny 3' tree. I was thinking 5' or so.

Would I be better to go out and buy maple trees at a garden center? Money is going to be tight after we close, hence why I am looking at the free option here. I could wait a year if it would be better to buy them.

Would you guys recommend any other type of tree? I was kind of thinking aspen or birch, as I like the looks of them... but not sure if I could get them for very cheap.

Any and all advice would be greatly appreciated!

[smurfy]

5 ft maples should transplant easy and yes now is the right time when ground is wet. I transplanted a 10-12 ft tree. didn't try real hard when I dug it up either. by that I mean I didn't take to much care with caring for the roots. that thing is 20 plus feet high and growing crazy. maybe did that 10 years ago.

if you don't want messy trees those maples, some anyway can have a bumper crop of them airplanes. also birch are messy in the way they drop little dead branches.

[Tom7227]

Maybe you need to go to a nursery and get some input on what might fit your need. Soil type, soil moisture, lots of things can make a difference. Sort of disappointing if you go through all the work to move them and they all croak in a few years - which is common if the wrong thing is used.

[pushbutton]

If from a long lived wild stand there is a good chance Grandma's maples are Sugars. If more recent, they could be anything but probably Silvers, which would transplant pretty easy and grow fast, but they are messy. The sugars are a lot less messy, but grow relatively slow. Aspen and Birch are moderately messy and will grow pretty fast. Birch in particular, though, can be susceptible to a few different bugs and diseases. Often overlooked, Lindens are another option as they are a decently fast growing hardy tree. Ash used to be the "perfect" tree, but are having some bug issues and would stay away for awhile. So which one?.....thats for you to weigh out positives and negatives of each. If you are going to buy .....my favorite is a red/silver cross cultivar. Autumn Blaze is an example. I think jeffers red and freemani are similar.

As far as transplanting...... Now would be a good time, but since you cant do it till June makes it a little trickier. Since winter should finally be over with and the trees leafed out by then, would certainly lean towards the smaller trees. Cutting a deep circle around and under them as well as extensively pruning them back would be a good idea. The more vegetation, the less likely you will have success doing this in June. Small emerging leaves should be ok if you have a decent amount of smaller roots, but if just one big long tap root you might want to continue trimming the roots periodically throughout the year and transplant next year. Good Luck!