Mid-Atlantic Gardening: Your Neck of the Woods Chat- Winter Solstice 2012, 5 by Gitagal

Gitagal wrote:
Paul! You think you can dig up and lift a 17 yrat old shrub by yourself?????????????????
Just think of all the dirt that will be clinging to it! At least bring a burly buddy!
Even just all by itself--(No soil) the shrub would weigh about 70-80lbs.
Add over 100lbs to that.....

I think it would not be so hard to ask someone HERE to mousy over and dig up a shrub with a backhoe.
I can ask around.....May cost a few bucks--BUT...please! Do not injure yourself!!!

You have to lift.drag it into a truck as well to get it home....Don't be a fool!

One option is to seriously cut back the Shrub by about 1/2. It will help anyway to compensate for the root loss.
Then it may be more manageable. All you will lose is bloom on the new sprouts for the next year.
For this--you may want to wait until it is done blooming and ready to go into its growth spurt and growing leaves.
Catch it in between the two--maybe around mid March--and then dig it up.

Give it some thought. I know you are excited at the thought of this and anxious to get it.
Patience is a virtue......G.

1--2006-April
2--Seeds ripening on shrub-2006-June
3--All the pods shelled that year. 2006-June. This may have been the first year it produced seeds.
4--here are the surface roots that are barely under the soil in this bed--2006-March.
5--Earliest shot I have--March--2005. early winter--as it is starting to bud.
This might be, approx. 3 or 4 years after I got this shrub from Bernie. SO! Assuming it was about 3 yrs. old at the time-
and then 3 more years to grow--this would make it about 7 or 8 years old. This is in 2005.
I do think that once it starts growing--it grows pretty fast.




This message was edited Jan 6, 2013 10:55 PM