I am having a landscape company come in this week and greatly expand my garden space. To make this easier I was thinking of lifting a ginko, an eastern redbud and a dogwood. These trees have been in the ground anywhere from 2 - 6 years and are still reasonably small. Do you think I can do this without losing the trees? I also have a large red waterfall type Japanese maple, age unknown but it's quite big with a trunk about 8 inches thick. It has outgrown it's space and is impeding access to our front door. Do you think it can be moved?
Perfect weather for it today, in my location. Success is likely unless specimens handled with complete lack of finesse.
Japanese maples are usually shallow rooting. Some advice on digging and moving them in this thread: http://www.botanicalgarden.ubc.ca/forums/showthread.php?t=66503
Your equipment and methods always need to be up to the size of each specimen. Better to move bare-rooted then chop or gouge away too many roots trying to get an intact soil ball.