I have a monkey puzzle tree that is about 25 years old, and over 2 stories tall (taller than my two storey house). Due to construction by the city, it needs to be moved or it will be bulldozed. Has anyone done this before, or know of any good resources or tips on how to do this successfully? It would be a shame to lose the tree. Thanks!
Not really feasible. Can you get the city to change their development plans so as to keep it as a specimen tree?
Or have it moved and adopted by a botanic garden...I'm thinking there is one near you, p.m.! If Eric, our moderator pro tem, is reading this---well, how about it?
Can't see a botanic garden being interested - moving it successfully would be a major task requiring heavy machinery, so probably in excess of $10,000. And that cost for a plant that very likely doesn't have any documentation of its native origin couldn't be justified.
aw rats. I was hoping the outcome would be more favourable. I guess I'll just have to take lots of photos to remember it. Thanks for the input!
try offering the tree to the Vancouver Park Board. They have arborists on staff and equipment and may be able to salvage the tree. It would be a shame to lose a mature tree.
Are there not landscaping companies that have the equipment to move large trees? I am not going to pretend to know all the details regarding the removal, transport, and transplantation of large trees, but I know it is done. At least in my local area, Grand Rapids, Michigan, there are at least 3 such companies that routinely move large trees. If you are simply interested in saving the tree, a landscaping company may be interested in removing the tree if you told them they could simply have it and resell it themselves.
Yes, it can be done, but it is very, very expensive, and also ideally needs 2 or 3 years of pretreatment root pruning before the move.
I visited Darts Hill - a special public garden in the city of Surrey, BC this weekend. Their monkey puzzle tree is only a couple of feet tall. Perhaps your monkey puzzle tree would find a home here. The plants in the garden are coddled by a legion of volunteers and may be able to give the transplanted tree the attention it needs to recover. You could certainly ask the City of Surrey Parks Department, or contact tree moving companies or wholesale nurseries such as Piroche or Speciman. There is also a company called Trees Matter that offers tree moving services in the Vancouver area. If you can't keep the tree, maybe someone else can save it before it's cut down. Also, you may want to ask the City of Vancouver to compensate for the loss of this tree.
