Transplanting a Japanese Maple

The other day I tried to move a small Bloodgood japanese maple.  It was in a poor location and wasn’t doing particularly well.  So I calculated the appropriate size of the root ball, cut a perimeter around the tree with a spade, and then used a grub ax to dig down below the surface roots, cutting larger protruding roots as I went.  I was surprised to find some huge roots around the tree – but when I investigated further I discovered that those roots didn’t belong to the japanese maple at all.  Instead, they belonged to the huge sugar maples planted along the street about 30 feet away.  As I slowly started to rock the root ball to get the tree out of the hole, it immediately fell apart.  In fact, I found that what I’d thought was the root ball was actually just a mess of roots from the street maples.  The japanese maple had hardly any roots at all!  (a scraggly mass about 12″ deep and wide for a 4′ tree)  So now my simple root ball moving project became a bare root tree planting project…  I dug a hole the depth of the roots and 2 times as wide, added a little superphosphate to the soil (to encourage root growth), built a small mound in the center and carefully placed the roots around the mound.  Then I filled in the hole about 1/3 full while holding the tree in place, firmed the soil with my heel and some water, and filled it the rest of the way.  I built a small earth wall around the drip line to hold water in, placed three stakes around the tree to keep it upright (it kept falling over without the stakes), and watered thoroughly.  The problem is that there are so few roots on the tree that I’m not sure it will survive the move.  I’ll keep you posted as things progress…

Bloodgood japanese maple with (small) root ball

Root ball next to a 12″ ruler