LARGE TREE PLANTING* 



By JAMES L. GREENLEAF 



(Meeting of March 14, 1905) 



MY desire is to bring out the opinions of others on the subject of large tree planting. 

 Some of these I fully anticipate will be in opposition to all large tree moving. 

 When a client some time ago was expressing to me his desire to have results 

 quickly, I remarked to him that it required a young landscape architect to plan for planting 

 large trees. The older men knew better than to do it. I think there is a great deal of 

 truth in this, because it does not stand to reason that a growth long established can be 

 violently taken from its environment and plunged into new conditions without something 

 of a shock. We know how hard it is to teach an old dog new tricks, and if a tree had a 

 voice to speak, I do not doubt it would enter even louder protests against being interfered 

 with. Nevertheless, conditions and not theories confront us; and it is doubtless the 

 general experience that numerous cases arise where the inducements to use large trees 

 for immediate effect are imperative. 



Assuming that work of this character must be done more or less frequently, what 

 are the best methods of handhng it, under various conditions? We all know that it is possible 

 successfully to move large trees, although success will not invariably follow the most 

 earnest efforts. I should like to hear from anyone who has had experience of this nature 

 in hotter and drier climates than ours. Is large tree moving feasible in Nebraska, for 

 example, and under what conditions? 



I imagine the necessity for moving big trees has not arisen to any extent on the 

 Pacific coast, but has any work of that nature been done there? 



Can any one tell us of big tree moving in the far South? And how about handling 

 palmetto trees, for example? 



Returing to the consideration of large tree moving, as we meet the problem in this 

 region, I presume we are all agreed upon the value of root-pruning a year or two previous 

 to moving, by digging a circular trench around the tree. If this is filled back with good 

 soil the tree is induced to throw into it a large amount of fresh, young, fibrous roots. Of 

 course, the more fibrous the root-system, the greater the facility with which the tree will 

 take hold upon its new conditions after planting. But I have known cases in which the 

 root-pruning did not work to any material advantage, and for the following reason: 



Suppose the root-pruned tree is to be moved in winter, when it is impracticable 

 to rake out and preserve the lateral fibers, then the course of procedure is to dig the ball 

 larger than the root-pruning ball, in order to include the new fiber, but this practically 

 results in the breaking, or slumping off, of the sides of the ball formed of the material 

 into which the new fiber has grown. As the sides loosen and fall off, they take the fibrous 

 roots with them and, after all, the ball is reduced practically to the dimensions of the 

 root-pruning ball. Of course, so far as the tree has been forced into throwing out fresh 

 fiber into this ball, the conditions for moving it have been improved. I have, perhaps, 

 sketched an extreme situation in the foregoing remarks, and yet, is it not more or less 

 the case whenever one tries to move a recently root-pruned tree under freezing conditions? 

 *Paper sent out to members in advance of the meeting of March 14, 1905, for discussion at that meeting. 



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