Tree transplanting and large-tree moving field guide

What tree transplanting is, and what decides whether it lives

Tree transplanting is moving an established tree from one spot to another: digging a root ball big enough to carry the roots the tree needs to survive, getting it out of the ground and to the new hole without cracking the ball or wounding the trunk, then replanting it at the right depth and watering it long enough to rebuild what the dig took away. Planting nursery stock is a different job, and our tree and shrub planting and establishment guide covers that case. This guide is about moving a tree that is already in the ground, often a large one.

Four things decide the outcome, and the order matters. How much root you take with the ball. When you move it. Whether you root pruned a big tree ahead of time. And how you water it after. Get the ball size right for the caliper, move it dormant with the ball intact, set the flare at grade, and water it through establishment, and a healthy tree of moderate size has good odds. Miss any one of those and you have a tree that leafs out the first spring on stored energy and then slides backward into a slow death over two or three seasons.

Understand what a transplant actually is from the tree's side. You are leaving most of its root system in the old hole and asking it to run a full canopy on a fraction of the roots until it grows them back. The whole craft is keeping that imbalance survivable: take as much root as you can carry, lose as little water as you can, and feed it water until the roots catch up to the top.

Why moving a big tree is risky work

A transplant leaves most of the tree behind. A mature tree's roots spread well past the dripline, two to three times the canopy radius on open-grown trees, and they sit mostly in the top 12 to 18 in of soil. No diggable ball captures more than a fraction of that. Even a generous ball on a large tree takes a small share of the absorbing roots, which is why the tree wilts, scorches, and drops leaves after the move. That is transplant shock, and it is not a sign something went wrong. It is the cost of the cut.

The bigger the tree, the worse the math. A small tree carries a ball that holds a large share of its roots relative to its top, so it barely notices the move. A large tree carries a ball that is huge in pounds but small in percentage of the root system, so it takes the move hard and recovers slowly. Survival odds drop as caliper climbs, and recovery stretches out. A common field rule is roughly a year of recovery per inch of trunk caliper, so a 6 in tree can spend several years just getting back to where it was.

Then there is the money. A specimen tree is worth thousands of dollars and decades of growth you cannot buy back. Kill it in the move and you are not replacing it, you are replacing it with something small and waiting twenty years. Be blunt with the client about that before the dig, not after. The realistic odds, the cost of a dead specimen, and what the aftercare requires are a conversation that belongs up front.

How big does a tree root ball need to be?

A transplant root ball needs roughly 10 to 12 in of ball diameter for every inch of trunk caliper, per the American Standard for Nursery Stock, ANSI Z60.1. A 2 in caliper tree wants a ball around 20 to 24 in across. A 4 in tree wants 40 to 48 in. A 6 in tree wants 60 to 72 in. Bigger ball means more roots, and more roots means a better chance the tree survives the imbalance between its cut-down roots and its full top.

Treat the 10x figure as the floor and the 12x figure as the target. The standard sets minimums for nursery stock dug under good conditions, so on a transplant you want the larger end for a high-value specimen, a slow-to-recover species, or any tree you are forced to move outside the dormant window. The ratio is a starting point that a certified arborist adjusts to the species and the site, not a law. Coarse-rooted species and poor soils argue for more ball, not less.

Depth is not the same as width. Most of the absorbing roots are shallow, so ANSI Z60.1 specifies a ball that is shorter than it is wide, and a deep ball mostly adds dead weight without adding useful roots. Dig wide and flat to the spec, not deep and round. Confirm the current ANSI Z60.1 tables and the species against a certified arborist before you commit the dig, because the exact dimensions step up by caliper class.

Measuring trunk caliper

Caliper is the diameter of the trunk near the base, and it is the number the whole ball is sized from, so measure it before anything else. Per ANSI Z60.1, caliper is taken 6 in above the ground for trunks up to and including 4 in, and 12 in above the ground for trunks larger than 4 in. The change in measuring height for bigger trunks catches people, and getting it wrong throws off the ball spec.

Caliper is not the same as diameter at breast height, the DBH foresters and risk assessors use at 4.5 ft. A flaring base reads far larger at 6 in than at breast height, so do not size a transplant ball off a DBH number. Use caliper at the ANSI height, measured with a caliper tool or a diameter tape across the trunk, and on an out-of-round trunk take the average of the widest and narrowest readings.

Caliper is the basis for the ball, the equipment, and the price. It tells you how wide to dig, whether a tree spade can handle it or the job needs a crane, and how many seasons of aftercare to plan for. Measure it once, carefully, because every other decision rides on it.

Can you transplant a large tree?

You can transplant a large tree, but the odds and the cost both move against you as it gets bigger, and past a certain size it stops being a landscape job and becomes a specialized one. Small trees up to a few inches of caliper move easily and recover fast, because the ball holds a high share of their roots. Mid-size trees move well with the right ball, the right timing, and real aftercare. Large specimens are hard, expensive, and best left to a tree-moving outfit with a crane and the experience to keep a multi-ton ball intact.

Survival declines with size for a physical reason, not a mystical one. The ball you can dig captures a shrinking percentage of the root system as the tree grows, so the imbalance the tree has to recover from gets steeper. That is why a 2 in tree shrugs off a move and a 10 in tree may spend years in decline even when everything was done right.

The honest answer to a client asking about a big old tree is usually that root pruning a year ahead and a generous ball give it a fighting chance, that the odds are real but not certain, and that the bigger the tree the more the move should go to a pro. A certified arborist should weigh in on whether the specific tree is a candidate before a spade ever touches the soil.

When is the best time to transplant a tree?

The best time to move most trees is when they are dormant, in late fall after the leaves drop or in early spring before the buds break. A dormant tree is not running a full canopy, so the cut-down root system has the lowest possible water demand to meet while it starts to rebuild. Move a tree in full leaf on a hot day and the roots you left behind cannot supply the water the canopy is losing, and the tree wilts hard the same afternoon.

Avoid heat and active growth. Summer moves are the ones that fail, because high temperatures and a flushing canopy stack the highest water demand on the fewest roots. If a tree must move in the growing season, it goes to the largest practical ball, the heaviest watering, and the most shade and wind protection you can give it, and you tell the client the odds dropped.

The exact window depends on the species and the climate, and a certified arborist sets it. Many deciduous trees take a fall or early-spring move well. Some species, including a number of oaks, magnolias, and other coarse-rooted or marginally hardy trees, do better moved only in spring so they have the whole growing season to establish before winter. Evergreens have their own preferred windows. Confirm the window for the actual species before scheduling the dig.

Root pruning ahead of the move

For a large or valuable tree, the single biggest thing you can do to improve survival is root prune it months to a year before the move. Root pruning means cutting a ring through the roots at, or slightly inside, the line of the future ball, well ahead of the dig. The cut roots respond by branching and pushing a dense mat of new fibrous roots inside that ring, exactly where the ball will capture them. When the move finally happens, the ball carries far more working roots than a cold dig ever could.

Timing the prune to the move is its own small craft. A tree headed for a spring transplant is usually root pruned the previous fall. A tree headed for a fall move is pruned in the spring. The gap gives the tree a season to regrow inside the cut line. Common practice runs around 6 months between pruning and the move, with a minimum of a few months and up to a full year for big specimens, and the exact interval depends on the species and how fast it roots.

On the largest trees the prune can be staged, cutting part of the circle one season and the rest the next, so the tree is never severed from too many roots at once. This is patient work and it is the difference maker on a specimen. The schedule and the staging should be set by a certified arborist who knows how the species responds.

The hydraulic tree spade

A tree spade is a set of hydraulic blades, mounted on a truck, skid steer, or track loader, that drive into the soil around the trunk and close into a cone to lift the tree and its ball in one motion. It is fast and mechanized, and on the right stock it is the cheapest way to move a tree. The blades cut the ball, lift it, and carry it to the new hole, which the same machine has already dug to a matching shape.

The matched-hole method is the speed advantage. You dig the receiving hole with the same spade that will carry the tree, so the cone the machine cuts at the new site is the exact size and shape of the ball it lifts. The tree drops in clean with no trimming and no air gap at the sides. Done well, a spade can move a tree and have it set in minutes.

Spade size has to match tree size, and that is where spades have a hard limit. A given spade cuts a fixed ball diameter, and the larger truck-mounted units typically top out around a 9 to 10 in trunk and a ball in the 80 to 90 in range. The catch is that a spade ball sized to the machine can run smaller than the 10 to 12 in per caliper a transplant really wants, so spades shine on smaller and matched nursery stock and get marginal on big specimens. Above the largest spade, the job goes to a hand dig and a crane.

Balled-and-burlapped hand digging

Balled-and-burlapped, or B&B, is the hand-dug method: a crew digs the ball with shovels and spades, then wraps it to hold the soil together for the move. The ball gets covered in burlap, and on anything but the smallest tree the burlap is held by a galvanized wire basket that cradles the bottom and sides. The basket and burlap keep the ball from crumbling while it is lifted, hauled, and lowered.

On a large ball the wrap is taken further with drum lacing, a pattern of rope or twine run over the top and around the ball, pulled tight to bind the soil into a firm drum that can take a crane lift without slumping. Burlap is pinned and laced, not just draped. A ball that is laced tight holds its shape. A loose wrap lets the ball sag and crack the moment it leaves the hole.

Use natural untreated burlap that will rot in the ground, not synthetic, because synthetic burlap does not break down and strangles roots later. The wire basket and the lacing are temporary structure for the move, and the parts near the trunk and the top of the ball come off at planting so they cannot girdle the tree as it grows.

Tree spade or balled-and-burlapped: which method?

Use a tree spade for speed and for matched stock within the machine's size range. Use balled-and-burlapped for trees too big for a spade, for oddball situations a cone cannot fit, and any time the move needs a bigger ball than the spade will cut. Most moves come down to that split: the spade is faster and cheaper when the tree fits it, and the hand dig with a wire basket and a crane is the answer when it does not.

The spade wins on small to mid-size trees on open ground where a truck can reach the trunk. It is one machine, a few minutes, and a matched hole. It loses when the tree is too large, when access is tight, when the ball needs to be wider than the cone the machine cuts, or when you want to inspect and correct the roots, which a sealed spade ball does not let you do.

B&B wins on the large and the difficult. The hand dig lets you size the ball to the caliper, lace it for a crane lift, and handle a tree the largest spade cannot touch. It costs more in labor and time. For a specimen tree, that cost is cheap next to losing the tree, and a certified arborist will usually push a borderline tree toward the larger hand-dug ball.

The dig: keep the ball intact

Dig outside the ball line, not on it. Mark the ball diameter from the caliper spec, then trench around the outside of that mark so the ball itself is never undercut by a shovel working from the wrong side. Cut clean down through the roots at the line, then undercut the ball from the sides to free it from below. The goal through all of it is one thing: the ball comes out in one solid piece and does not crack.

A cracked ball is a tree with the roots torn off inside the soil you are trying to save, and it is one of the most common ways a move fails. Once a ball breaks, the fine roots shear, the soil falls away, and the tree may as well have been bare-rooted. Handle the ball like it is fragile, because it is.

Soil type decides how hard this is. A clay or loam ball with some moisture binds together and holds its shape, so it digs and laces well. A sandy or dry ball wants to fall apart the moment it moves. Water the tree deeply a day or two before the dig so the ball is moist and cohesive, not dust. In sand, lace the ball harder and accept that it is the riskiest soil to move a tree out of.

Protect the trunk and lift by the ball

Lift the tree by the ball, never by the trunk. The trunk is not a handle, and a tree hung by its stem tears the roots away from the ball under its own weight and crushes the bark where the strap bites. The ball is the load-bearing part. Rig the lift to the ball with a sling or a basket, and let the trunk just ride along.

Bark is thin and easily damaged, and a wound at the trunk is a wound for the life of the tree. Where chains, straps, or a sling touch the trunk or low branches, pad them with carpet, wood blocks, or proper rigging pads so the rigging cannot crush or girdle. A chain wrapped bare around a trunk leaves a ring of dead cambium that the tree may never close.

Bark also damages from the inside out if the rigging cuts off the cambium even briefly under load. Watch the contact points the whole lift. The few minutes the tree is in the air are when most avoidable trunk damage happens, and it is all preventable with padding and a lift rigged to the ball.

The lift and the move

A large root ball is heavy in tons, not pounds, and that governs the equipment. A 2 in tree carries a ball in the 250 to 450 lb range. A 44 in ball runs around 1,500 lb. A 6 in specimen ball runs into the tons, and the largest moves need a crane, engineered slings, and sometimes a cradle built to hold the ball without crushing it. Size the equipment to the calculated ball weight before the dig, not by eye on the day.

Secure the ball and the canopy for transport. The ball is strapped so it cannot shift and crack on the road, and the canopy is tied in and protected, because a tree dragged down the highway at speed loses water and breaks branches to wind the whole way. Tarp or wrap the canopy on a long or fast haul to cut the drying.

Time matters once the tree is out of the ground. Every hour the ball is exposed, the fine roots dry and die, so the move from old hole to new hole should be as short as you can make it. If the tree must wait, keep the ball shaded, moist, and out of the wind. A ball that bakes on a trailer for a day arrives with much of its surviving root already dead. Plan the lift and the haul so the tree is back in the ground the same day where you can.

The receiving hole

Dig the receiving hole before the tree shows up, and dig it to the ball, not deeper. The hole should be the same depth as the ball, measured to the root flare, so the ball sits on firm undug soil and cannot settle below grade later. Digging deeper and backfilling under the ball is the setup for a tree that sinks too deep after the first few waterings, and planting too deep is the leading cause of slow transplant death.

Dig wide, not deep. A hole two to three times the ball diameter, with sloped or roughened sides, gives the new roots loose soil to run into in the direction they actually grow, which is out and shallow, not down. Our planting and establishment guide covers the wide-shallow hole in more detail, and the same rule applies to a transplant.

For a tree-spade move, the receiving hole is the matched hole the same machine cuts, so it is automatically the right size and shape. For a B&B move, size the hole off the measured ball. Either way, set the depth to the flare and the width generous, then check the depth with a straightedge across the hole before the tree goes in, because it is far easier to fix now than with a multi-ton tree hanging over it.

How deep do you plant a transplanted tree?

Plant it so the root flare, the spot where the trunk widens into the roots, sits at or slightly above finish grade. Too deep is the number one killer of planted and transplanted trees, so when in doubt, plant high. A flare buried under soil suffocates, invites stem-girdling roots and decay at the buried bark, and chokes the tree slowly over years while everyone blames everything but the depth. Our tree and shrub planting and establishment guide covers finding the flare and setting depth, and it applies directly here.

The trap on a dug ball is that the flare is often already buried inside the ball. Field-grown and B&B trees frequently sit several inches too deep in their own soil, so the top of the ball is not the flare. Probe down into the top of the ball to find where the trunk actually flares into roots, and set that point at grade, even if it means the soil top of the ball stands proud of the surrounding ground.

Set the depth before you cut any wrapping and before you backfill, because raising or lowering a heavy ball after it is sitting and unwrapped is miserable and risks cracking it. Get the flare right while the tree is still in the sling.

Backfill with native soil

Backfill with the soil you dug out of the hole. The old practice of filling the hole with rich amended soil makes a soft pocket the roots circle inside of instead of growing out into the surrounding ground, and on poorly drained sites the amended pocket becomes a bathtub that holds water against the ball. Native soil, broken up and firmed back in, is what the roots have to grow into eventually, so start them in it.

Firm the backfill to close air pockets, but do not pack it like a fence post. Add soil in layers and settle each one with water, which removes the big voids without compacting the soil into a brick. Air pockets dry out the roots that bridge them, so a ball sitting against open gaps loses the very roots it needs. Water it in and the soil flows into the voids.

Skip the fertilizer in the hole. A transplant's problem is roots, not nutrients, and pushing top growth with fertilizer before the roots can support it works against the tree. Our planting and establishment guide covers backfill and amendment in more depth, and the rule is the same: native soil, firmed and watered in, no rich pocket.

Cut back the wire basket and burlap

Once the ball is set at the right depth and the tree is standing safely, cut and fold back the wire basket and the burlap from the top of the ball, and remove all twine and rope from around the trunk and the flare. Twine left on the trunk girdles the tree as it grows, and burlap left mounded around the stem wicks moisture off the trunk and rots the bark. Get every wrap off the trunk itself, no exceptions.

On the basket, the standard practical move is to remove at least the top third of the wire and the burlap once the ball is in the hole and supported. The reason you do not always strip the whole basket is that pulling wire off the lower ball, especially in sand, can crumble the ball you just spent the day keeping intact. Research on wire deep in the ball is mixed, and roots do grow through and engulf it with little visible harm, so the firm rule is the top and sides near the surface, and a judgment call below that. A certified arborist sets how aggressive to be for the species and the soil.

Cut back synthetic burlap completely regardless, because it never rots. Natural burlap below grade will break down, but the part near the surface and the trunk still comes off so it cannot wick or girdle.

How do you water a transplanted tree?

Water it deeply and regularly for the first one to three years, because it lost most of its absorbing roots in the move and cannot yet reach the moisture in the surrounding soil. Watering is the single most important thing you do after the tree is in the ground, and underwatering during establishment is one of the most common reasons a transplant that started fine dies in year two. The ball and the new root zone have to stay moist, never waterlogged and never bone dry.

A workable schedule for the first season is a deep soak two to three times a week for the first month, then about once a week through the rest of the growing season, adjusted for heat, rain, and soil. Check the soil instead of the calendar: when the top 4 to 6 in is just slightly moist and starting to crumble, water again. Soak the ball and the backfill, not just the surface, because shallow watering grows shallow roots.

Establishment runs longer on a big tree, roughly a year of recovery and watering attention per inch of caliper, so a large specimen needs babying for several seasons, not one. Our planting and establishment guide covers watering during establishment, and the same approach applies, scaled up for the larger root loss a transplant takes. Both overwatering and underwatering kill, so check the soil and adjust rather than running a fixed schedule blind.

Staking the transplant

A big transplant is top-heavy and unstable, because a small ball under a tall canopy has little anchorage until new roots grow out, so a large transplant usually needs staking where a small one would not. Wind that would not budge an established tree can rock a fresh transplant and tear the new roots as fast as they form. Stake it so the root ball cannot shift in the soil.

Stake low and allow some sway. The trunk needs to flex to build taper and strength, so tie low on the trunk, use a wide flexible material that will not cut the bark, and leave a little movement rather than splinting the tree rigid. Stakes driven outside the ball, not through it, hold the ball steady while the top moves.

Stakes come off once the tree is anchored, usually after a year, and leaving them on too long does its own harm. Ties left to bite into a growing trunk girdle it, and a tree held rigid for years never builds the trunk strength to stand on its own. Set a date to pull them. Stake only the trees that need it, and take the stakes off when the roots have taken hold.

What is transplant shock?

Transplant shock is the decline a tree goes through after a move because its cut-down root system cannot supply the water its full canopy demands. The roots left behind in the old hole are gone, the ball holds only a fraction of what the tree had, and until the roots regrow to match the top, the tree runs a deficit. It shows as wilting, leaf scorch and browning at the margins, early leaf drop, smaller leaves, and twig dieback, and it can last from one season to several years depending on the tree's size and how much root it lost.

Recovery is the tree rebuilding roots until the root system and the crown come back into balance. The aftercare is aimed straight at that: water keeps the reduced roots supplied while they regrow, mulch holds soil moisture, and time does the rest. A tree given good aftercare works through the shock. A tree left dry slides backward into it.

Do not over-prune the top to compensate for the root loss. The old advice to cut the canopy back to match the lost roots does not hold up, and the research argues against heavy crown reduction at transplant, because the leaves the tree keeps are what power the new root growth it needs. Strip the canopy and you take away the photosynthesis that rebuilds the roots, a double hit. Remove only what is dead, broken, or clearly damaged, and leave the rest of the top alone. There is some judgment by species and a certified arborist may prune lightly, but the days of routinely cutting a third of the canopy off a transplant are over.

Mulch the root zone

Mulch the root zone with a few inches of coarse organic mulch to hold moisture, moderate soil temperature, and keep mowers and string trimmers away from the trunk. A wide ring out over the ball and the backfill does more good than a narrow collar, because the whole new root zone benefits from the moisture it conserves. Two to 3 in is plenty.

Keep the mulch off the trunk. Piled against the bark it traps moisture, rots the stem, and shelters the rodents that chew it, the volcano of mulch that kills as surely as it is common. Pull it back a few inches from the flare so the trunk stays dry and the flare stays visible. Our planting and establishment guide covers mulch rings in more detail, and the same rule holds: wide, shallow, and off the trunk.

Survival odds and warranty

Set the survival expectation with the client before the dig, not after the tree declines. A healthy, moderate-size tree, moved dormant with a proper ball and real aftercare, has good odds. A large specimen, a coarse-rooted species, an off-season move, or a tree that misses its watering all push the odds down, and no honest contractor promises a transplanted tree will live. The odds are real, not certain, and they ride on factors that are partly out of your hands once the tree is in the client's care.

Warranties reflect that. A one-year warranty is common on transplant work, and many contractors tie it to the client meeting a defined watering schedule, because a tree that dies of neglect is not a workmanship failure. Spell out the warranty terms and the watering requirement in writing, so the line between a move that failed and a tree that was let die is clear before there is an argument about it.

The realistic conversation is the one that keeps a client. Tell them the odds for this tree, the years of watering it will take, and the symptoms of shock to expect so they do not panic at the first scorched leaf. A certified arborist can give a species-specific read on the odds for the tree in front of you, which is worth more than any general percentage.

When should you not move a tree?

Some trees should not be moved, and knowing which is part of the job. A tree too large for the equipment and the budget, a species that transplants poorly, or a tree already in declining health is a poor candidate, and moving it is often spending real money to relocate a tree that was going to die anyway. Assess the tree honestly before you sell the move.

Species matters. Easy movers include many maples, elms, hackberry, honeylocust, and lindens, which build fibrous roots and recover well. Hard movers include many oaks, hickories, walnuts, and beeches and other deep or coarse-rooted trees, which lose a larger share of their root system to the dig and resent the move. A hard-to-move species is not a flat no, but it raises the case for root pruning a year ahead, a bigger ball, and a spring-only window.

Health and structure decide the rest, and that is where a real assessment comes in. A tree with significant decay, a poor root system, or structural defects may not survive the stress of a move, and it may not be worth saving even if it does. Our tree risk assessment and hazard trees guide covers reading a tree's condition and defects, and that read should happen before the transplant decision. When the tree is too big, the species wrong, or the health poor, the right call is often to plant a new tree and skip the move.

What to document

A transplant is a multi-year job that outlives anyone's memory of the dig, so the record is what tells the next person whether the tree was set up to live. Capture the caliper, the ball size, the move date and method, the planting depth check, and the aftercare schedule, and keep it where the client and the crew can find it. When a tree struggles in year two, the record is what separates a watering problem from an install problem.

Tie it to a field tool so it does not live on a lost scrap of paper. FieldOS lets a crew log the caliper and ball size, photograph the flare set at grade before backfill, attach the watering schedule, and set the reminders that drive the aftercare across the seasons the tree needs it. The dig is one day. The record and the watering are years, and the tool is what carries them.

Common mistakes

• Digging a root ball too small for the caliper, so the tree loses more roots than it can recover from.
• Moving the tree in heat or active growth instead of dormancy, stacking high water demand on few roots.
• Cracking the ball in the dig or the lift, which shears the fine roots and bare-roots the tree.
• Lifting by the trunk instead of the ball, tearing roots and crushing bark.
• Planting too deep, with the root flare buried, the leading cause of slow transplant death.
• Leaving the wire basket, twine, and burlap around the trunk and top to girdle the tree.
• Skipping the aftercare watering, so a transplant that started fine dies the second season.
• Over-pruning the canopy to compensate for root loss, removing the leaves that rebuild the roots.

Field checklist

Standards and references

The American Standard for Nursery Stock, ANSI Z60.1, maintained by AmericanHort, is the document behind the root ball sizing. It sets the minimum ball diameter and depth for each trunk caliper class and defines where caliper is measured, 6 in above grade up to 4 in caliper and 12 in above grade beyond that. The roughly 10 to 12 in of ball per inch of caliper is the field shorthand for those tables, and the exact dimensions step by class, so confirm the current edition against the actual caliper.

Transplanting practice itself comes out of arboriculture, through the International Society of Arboriculture and the kind of guidance carried in university extension publications. The timing by species, the root-pruning schedule, the depth rule, and the aftercare are arboriculture practice, not a single numbered standard, and they vary with the species and the site. Tree risk and structural work follows ANSI A300 and ISA TRAQ, which our tree risk assessment guide covers.

The three things to get right on every move are the same three to hold against the standards and the arborist: size the root ball to the caliper, move it dormant and keep the ball intact, and plant it at the flare and water it to establish. Hedge the ball size, the caliper measurement, and the timing to ANSI Z60.1, a certified arborist, and the species, because those are the variables that change with the tree in front of you. Do not hedge keeping the ball intact or setting the flare at grade, because those are where moves are lost.

Units and terms

The vocabulary of a transplant runs together on a jobsite, so the same idea shows up under several names across a spec, a nursery tag, and a crew's shorthand.

Root ball size is given as a diameter in inches and tied to trunk caliper, also in inches. Ball weight runs from a few hundred pounds on small stock to tons on a specimen. B&B is balled-and-burlapped. The wire basket, burlap, and drum lacing are the wrap that holds the ball. Caliper is measured at the ANSI height, distinct from DBH at 4.5 ft. The terms below define the words used through this guide.

Transplanting

Moving an established tree, ball and all, from one location to another, as opposed to planting nursery stock

Root ball

The mass of soil and roots dug with the tree, sized by trunk caliper per ANSI Z60.1

Trunk caliper

Trunk diameter measured 6 in above grade up to 4 in, or 12 in above grade beyond that, per ANSI Z60.1

Balled-and-burlapped (B&B)

A hand-dug ball wrapped in burlap and a wire basket to hold it together for the move

Tree spade

A hydraulic machine whose blades cut and lift a tree and its ball in one cone-shaped piece

Root pruning

Cutting a ring of roots months to a year ahead so fibrous roots regrow inside the future ball line

Transplant shock

Decline after a move when the cut-down roots cannot supply the canopy's water demand

Root flare

The widening at the trunk base where it meets the roots, set at or above grade when planting

Related tools

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