Chances of a mature arborvitae transplant surviving this late in the year?

[Agriff]

This isn't *exactly* related to bonsai, so I wasn't sure if it would have been better to put in the Tea House, but since it's still about trees here we are.

My partner and I got the chance to take twelve, ~6' tall arborvitae off of the hands of a neighbor who is doing landscaping. Here in Minnesota we have about 4 more months, give or take 2 or so weeks, until the first frost.

They're going to a place in our yard that's shaded by a bur oak and doesn't get full sun.

Given the value of this offer, I'm tempted to give this a shot, but on the other hand this is a ton of time and energy to gamble on what could be a very low chance of success.

What do you all thing? And what would you suggest in terms of cheap-ish substrate? Pine bark fines?

 

[LeftHandLuke]

If I follow correctly, you're moving landscape plants from one place to another. On one hand, it's definitely the worst time of year to do that, as you know. On the other hand, that's what so many people do in the northern hemisphere right at the height of summer... Well, typically they are planting nursery stock that hasn't been in the ground, of course, so it's a bit different. Coincidentally, my neighbor planted several nursery stock 6' arborvitae last year at this time. Last I checked, they were all struggling, one or two looking pretty rough. That aside, they were planted in full sun and I'm pretty sure they weren't maintained (babied) properly after planting. Your chance of success will depend greatly on how skillfully you dig them. You certainly can't bare-root them. They'll die. The bigger the root ball, the better. Not sure what you mean by substrate, though, unless you were indeed thinking of bare-rooting them.

 

[Agriff]

If I follow correctly, you're moving landscape plants from one place to another. On one hand, it's definitely the worst time of year to do that, as you know. On the other hand, that's what so many people do in the northern hemisphere right at the height of summer... Well, typically they are planting nursery stock that hasn't been in the ground, of course, so it's a bit different. Coincidentally, my neighbor planted several nursery stock 6' arborvitae last year at this time. Last I checked, they were all struggling, one or two looking pretty rough. That aside, they were planted in full sun and I'm pretty sure they weren't maintained (babied) properly after planting. Your chance of success will depend greatly on how skillfully you dig them. You certainly can't bare-root them. They'll die. The bigger the root ball, the better. Not sure what you mean by substrate, though, unless you were indeed thinking of bare-rooting them.

That's what I imagined! And yeah we're talking landscaping. I've never done any work with full size trees before, hahahaha

Definitely not thinking of bare rooting, my goal was to disturb the roots as little as possible. For substrate I was thinking in terms of what I would back fill with. Like do I want to dig a hole bigger than the root ball and surround the root ball in the ground with something conducive to root growth and nutrition?

 

[LeftHandLuke]

Got it. If the neighbor is going to toss them in the landfill otherwise, then maybe give it a shot. I'd recommend following the steps outlined in this article (digging the trench). You wouldn't need the burlap, of course, but you will need to make sure the root ball doesn't crumble away. Planting would be as you describe, but for substrate I'd recommend a good quality topsoil, maybe enrich it by mixing in some peat moss.

 

[just.wing.it]

I have a neighbor who had a landscaping company plant a row of white cedar this time last year.
By springtime, the whole row was brown.

 

[Agriff]

Thanks for your advice @LeftHandLuke! We rented a root tiller last night and tilled up about a 3ft wide trench next to the fence. My partner is having second thoughts about the whole thing today though, lol. We're going to monitor the fence to see how many hours of direct sunlight it gets throughout the day today and we might just decide to abandon the project while we're only out the $70 for the tiller if the sunlight prospects don't look too hopeful.