How to take garden with me when I move?

I'm in zone 5 and we plan on moving this winter when the ground will most likely be frozen. I talked to my realtor and she said I could negotiate to come back in the spring and dig up my plants. Has anyone ever done this? It seems awkward, but I am not in a financial position to just replace everything. Tamara

Have you thought about pulling things now? Stash them in pots and budle the pots against a wall or under some plastic to prevent freezing - then just pack up the pots when you move.

Maybe go to a landscape company to snitch some pots that they toss. They're doing the annual winter replace-everything-with-pansies transition here now...lots of pots getting tossed.

HI, I would try to do both. Pot and protect what you can (anyone have an unheated garage or basement you could use?) or arrange with the new owner. I will be moving at some point in the near future. I have already potted up some stuff, that can bloom next season, still in the pot-if I haven't found a new home. Otherwise, in the sale will be the stipulation that all/most of the plants will come with me and the new owners will have a choice of seed/sod (if they want) for a lawn. Some plants,like the mature gas plant and the peonies will be last minute, very careful transfers!
I have -like you-too much garden to replace; plus many plants aren't replaceable (from people I know or that I have grown myself etc.)
Good luck.

I almost envy the thought of starting over! I've learned so much since I originally did my stonework and "foundation" plantings...

But this is the best time to lift the perennials!! Lacking a sheltered place for transplants, you could mound leaves over them, or hay-bale aound them w/leaves or loose hay on top- the hay bales can be broken up to start a compost heap in spring.

Garden centers/greenhouses are slow this time of year; maybe one would store your plants for spring. I don't know how much they charge, but I'd bet it would be worth the phone call. I know bonsai greenhouses overwinter their customers' plants. It makes a beautiful display, plus the owners always buy something new. If there is a flat storage/care fee invloved, maybe the realtor can cover that somehow.

Rather than stealing nursery pots, I'm sure you can do a quick ebay search for a cheap bulk lot of gallon pots (clean and free of disease). Then take a hard inventory. Write down what you want to dig up, and make sure you have a good place for it in the new garden. It would be horrible for the plant to die because of a move. Plus, many won't "like" transplanting, and maybe some will be too big.

A lesson to us all... add the dollar value of our gardens to the total of the house! They represent so many hours of labor!! I hate to use "should", but an amount should have be set aside for you to get some finacial help with digging, storage and moving AND new plants. I would vote for only taking what you really must have and gradually replace the rest. It is a HUGE pain to move plants with everything else that has to be moved! Even when I was 20 and just had a handful of houseplants, I got dirt everywhere, and the plants wound up neglected in the basement forever because I was getting the house in order. When I moved into this house 15 years ago, I found that the previous owners had left the largest indoor plants because they couldn't move them... JOY!!!

When I sold my home in Virginia, part of the contract was that I could come back in the Summer, remove or take cuttings. I stipulated exactly what I wanted in the contract. The buyers had no problem with it.

X

Make very sure you specifically put in the contract that you can come back for plants. I've heard cases of that working very well (like above) and I've also heard from others that when they tried to go back, the new owners were very nasty about it. Sad, but true.

When do you think you will move? I was lucky when I knew I was moving and started potting stuff in late summer going into fall. Maybe you can start potting the very most important plants now so you can be sure to have them. You may also want to consider how hard or easy and how cheap or expensive it might be to replace the plants. It would be a royal pain to dig up and pot a bunch of plants then drag them with you if you can find them locally for a small price.

Best of luck to you!

First, for clarity - I didn't mean steal pots - just to ask for the ones that the company would normally throw away. (bad phrasing on my part. Sorry )

But also, if you go with the contract route, you might want to include both the time frame you'd be coming to get the plants and the condition you are expected to leave the beds. This would allow the new owners to know when they would need to buy their own plants to fill in the holes and/or to know that you are not just going to leave a torn-up patch of ground that they will have to smooth and re-mulch, etc. I think MOST people would be ok with that as long as they know the specific spots they'd have to fill and that you're not just going to tear up their new yard and leave it for them to clean up.

BackyardZoo, I didn't mean that you "steal" pots... I've asked for some, and the nurseries aren't terribly accomodating around here- the "bottom line" is all that counts, and they want $$ for everything. The people in the Boston area are extremely guarded about everything, and I wouldn't think of asking to remove a plant if I sold my house. The last time I did anything- to my OWN garden- my neighbors sued me! I took down a garden shed!! I won, of course, but it wasted a lot of my time. I have been sued by abutters to both sides, and I've sued them back.

You all are lucky to live in parts of the country that are friendly and less letigious. The economy and cost of housing here has turned us all into monsters. I can't believe that store clerks say "Hello" and "Thank you" in Ohio, Florida, VA, etc.!

Sued you for taking down a garden shed that was yourstobegin with??? How awful. Tell you what they house behindme is for sale you come here and buy uit and I won't sue you for doing anything to that yard. Just you would have to look at my morning glories all summerlong.

Zone5girl, I love gardening and I'm also a renter. These are sometimes difficult to be at the same time!!!! I have moved 3 times since starting gardening seriously. The last time I moved, I ended up taking about 40-50 plants with me. Some of the plants were small and easy like my blanket flowers and coral bells. The largest of the plants was a mature winter daphne that I have moved 3 times now! I have found that the best way to do it is to dig them and then plant them the same day. Even if you stick them in a spot that isn't permanent it is better to have them in the ground then have 40 pots sitting out on your lawn. I have borrowed a friends truck to move the bigger plants, but most of them I have moved in my honda civic. YIKES!!!! The fastest, easiest, cleanest way to do this is with plastic bags. I just grab a box of garbage bags, pop the plants into them with very little soil, pack them side by side in a cardboard box, shove it in my car, and away we go!!! Bags take up less room then pots and are easier to handle. As long as you are planting them right away, this technique has worked the best for me.
My next move will be into a house of my own and about 75 plants (from bulbs, to grasses, to vines) will all be coming with me! Good luck with your move!!!!!

dirttiger, LOL!!!
It's funny how books and experts will give tons of advice, but it rarely applies in the seat-of-the-pants world we live in!!! Plants are usually more resilliant than we give them credit for- how else can there be plant life on earth after a few billion years?? Man's hybridizing not withstanding!

cececoogan, I'd love to live in WI- do you get a lot of snow? I LOVE snow!!! I fret about how my garden looks all spring, summer and fall-- then when it snows, it looks MAGNIFICENT!!!

The lousy neighbor just moved out last week!! Whoo-hoo!!! I made sure I wrote up an elaborate "Welcome" note to the new people. The problem is that they have an easement on own property for their driveway. This easement cut right through my garden, creating more room for plants (good!) but it exposed an old, rotted shed that the original owners of my house built. It was hideous! I contracted to have it removed, and the estimate was $800. When I told the neighbor about the cost, he said he'd get his contractor to demo it, and all he'd ask from me is the overage to dump his container. The overage came to $193.00 (he gave me a copy of the original bill), so I gave him a check for $193. He stormed over to my property, cussin' a blue streak, and told me I owed him $800! He threw the check at me, and told me I'd see him in court. I got a summonds for small claims, and they tossed it out. None of this ever explained why he could justify asking for $800! His argument was "That is the going rate." Raised my blood pressure, but he's gone!!!

Would have raised more than just my blood pressure. thants for sure.


Snow......we get our share. Not like when my family moved here in 66 though. I was only 10 years old and we would get snow banks along the friveways about 5 or 6 feet high. Haven't seen that in quite a few years. We get our share though. I'm not much of a snow person. It was funthe first couple of years now in "my perfect world" it woukld snow Christmas Eve stay for christmas day and then go away til the next year. But I don't have my perfect world yet. What can I say?

For extra pots: contact garden clubs in your area. Most members will have tons of empty pots stacked in basements or garages. I just put a huge amount in the recycle. Everyone I know has too many empty pots. I don't know why we save them! A few are handy, but...

I admire your moving your garden. So many plants are special to us... and too many new buyers will rip out the old garden and plant grass.

Sterling

Leave the plants and give yourself a plant fund from the sale of your home so you can buy new plants. If you do take plants just take those that are rare/expensive/or hard to replace. Leave the common ones behind. This is from someone who has moved a garden three times from state to state, renting one of the largest uhaulsl for plants ALONE and I still ran out of room! I will admit that I have/had a serious emotional attachement to every garden I've planted and had a hell of time saying no to leaving anything behind. WELL- NEXT time it all stays behind! I love my garden but the work involved as well as the expense just isn't worth it anymore. I honestly think it would have been cheaper for me to replace most of the plants then it was to move them all.
Here is my garden today- I've been here going on five years... It pleases me once agian but I know there is always room for change and improvment so in a way I'm looking forward to moving again. I feel a bit liberated saying that it ALL stays next time I move. Even my beloved pots. I'm going to allow myself a allowance and spend every dime of it on garden related items and think about creating something beautiful.



This message was edited Oct 28, 2006 7:33 PM

Front bed- Nothing was here when I moved in except a hedge row of rhodies.

Entrance to the shade garden- Again some hedges and evergreens were there when I moved in. The rest I've planted.

Hi Tamara~

I couldn't agree with datdog more....if the plant is expensive, choice, rare, long-searched for, or truly has sentimental value take it, or a cutting, or division.....most everything else can be replaced, and you may find that your tastes, and your new garden call for different plants anyway. I wish someone had told me this years, and many moves ago. I know we can start thinking each and every plant is special, and they are -- but trust me.....you will love the excitement, and fun of finding the plants that suit your new garden, and your evolving tastes. Of course we all have the cherished plant from a dear friend or family member, the rare and oh-so-hard to find Japanese Maple, or other plants that really would be dificult, expensive, or maybe impossible to replace - but every plant is not such a plant. Imagine the joy of getting to know your new space, the light/shade specifics, the hardscape, the "bones" and then slowly filling in your new space with plants you purchased, traded for, or got really cheap at the co-ops here on DG -- just for this new space!! Of course no one can afford to just replace them all in one fell swoop, but you probably bought your plants in stages before, and think how much more you know now than even 1 or 2 years ago!! I am a little jealous just thinking of all the fun you will be having with a new garden, and a backbone of your cherished plants.....

Let us know what you decide, and how it all goes!!
Good Luck!!

Jamie

datdog-- you did that work yourself?!!! Amazing!!! It's beautiful!!!

My DH keeps asking when my garden will be "finished"... and he's been asking that for 15 years. I just hope he doesn't see yours! I just keep digging and tossing and re-planting. Whatever I'm working on is always a "work in progress"... the more hours I spend, the worse it looks, somehow; why IS that???

Thanks Jax- No help, I did it all myself except the stone work. I think every garden is a work in progress :) Lets just say my compost pile stays busy!

How many hours does it take you during the growing season? My problem is that it gets too hot and too buggy come July/Aug., and I get overcome w/weeds. I just can't keep up. Any ideas? Mugwort is my biggest problem these days, followed closely by nightshade. Neither respond to weed killers, and I don't want to use them, because I have a pond next to the garden. I do live in the wilderness-- even thought the exit ramp to interstate 95 is right behind these trees:

...and my tilled "sunny" garden is behind the pines on the extreme left.

The biggest mistake I made is to bring DH to the Montreal Horticultural Gardens. He wants mine to look like that. What he doesn't understand is that you can't just carve a flowerbed out of pine woods!!! Not unless you have heavy equipment and a paid staff. He said "So go hire a landscape architect!" He doesn't understand that the architecture is done; MAINTENANCE is the key!!! (Like he could afford an architect!!! LOL!!! Men!!!)

Maybe he thinks weeds say "Hey, we better not grow there; an ARCHITECT designed this!!!

Well, life threw us a curve ball--we won't be moving after all. At least not anytime soon, that is. I'm glad because now there isn't the pressure to fix the yard in its "growing out phase". Hopefully, in a few years, the plants will have reached maturity and then I will just have to maintain them so they look good when we move. In the meantime, I can start to propogate them and keep them in containers. Thanks, everyone, for your feedback. Tamara