Transplanting a Tree

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Grantman31 West Palm Beach, FL Jul 02, 2009

My father-in-law has a lime tree was grown from seeds from Costa Rica and it has great sentimental value as well as great limes! The tree is several years old and well established.
The problem: the tree sits in a depressed area that gets flooded every time it rains. The soil is like soup during these rains and long afterward. The tree is losing its leaves and drying out leaving brittle, bare branches, and we think it's getting too much water. It's a small tree, standing around 5' tall and 4-5' diameter.
The question: Is it possible to transplant this tree to a drier spot? Will it survive?
My other though was to dig a few feet down on the side which gets flooded and bury sandbags to keep some of that water from the roots. I'll try to get some pictures up but I'm not sure how soon I'll be over at their house.
Thanks in advance!

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ecrane3 Dublin, CA(Zone 9a) Jul 02, 2009

Unless you can come up with a way to drain water away from the area, I'd probably transplant it. The trick to successful transplanting is to get as much of the root ball as possible, the more roots that go with it to its new home the less transplant shock it'll suffer from. It's usually better to transplant in cooler weather vs the heat of summer, but in this case if you're expecting more rain between now and fall then it's probably better to move it now before its roots get even more damaged from the excess water. When you move it, if you find any roots that are really slimy and mushy looking, those are rotten so it's best to trim them off. Once you get it moved, rigging up some shade to protect it from hot sun when you first move it can help minimize the stress. Whether it survives or not in the long run though will also depend on how much damage has already been done--if most of its roots are already rotting it may be too late, but if it's just starting to have issues because of the excess water then chances are it'll make it.

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