Transplanting Fruit Trees

We used the winter period this year to transplant three fruit trees: one orange and two plum trees. All trees are mature fruit trees that have not been pruned for a while, about 10 years old, but that's hard to say. All have nearly the same height, around 3 m plus.

This was the first time that we have attempted to transplant trees. Julian doug them out carefully, pruned the roots and wrapped them with black plastic for the transport. The ute came again in handy and the first tree was tied to the car with the branches facing into the wind. Luckily there was not a big distance to travel.

The branches were held together with some plastic mesh as well. We had to dig out a peppermint tree to make room for the orange tree, the first one to be transplanted. 

We prepared the soil well at this end, lots of compost, worm tea and some bentonite to assist with the retention of water in summer. It was surprising how light the tree actually was with only little soil left on the roots. We easily carried it to the hole we prepared earlier and doug a bit wider and deeper than actually needed. This orange tree had quite a shallow root system.

We positioned the tree in the hole and turned it to match the space best. The leading root should position into the wind we were told. Fortunately the tree's new location is quite protected behind the garage door in a sunny corner or the garden.

We had to adjust the height of the roots to ensure that the trunk ended up again level with the soil. We left a bit of a ditch, to make watering in summer easier; and after a good soaking for a few days we topped the area under the tree with mulch, leaving enough space around the trunk to prevent rott.

The tree still had a lot of leaves and some oranges too. They were quite small, visible sign of underfeeding and poor care in the past. Still the tree showed plenty of buds and they now, six weeks after the actual planting they have not dropped off yet, so there is hope for some flowers in the coming season.

We are happy to have saved a tree and promise to look after it. I deplore the lack of research prior to the planting of our first tree, but when the tree found its final spot in the ground, all felt right and all is good as is. A good article about transplanting trees into the urban orchard in Perth and presented by Josh Byrne for ABC is available here.

I have been watering the tree in the past weeks without rain and am pleased that our water tanks are both full and 6,000l of water available for the coming hot season.