TRANSPLANTING. 



247 



which have died or become diseased may be 

 readily replaced by others. The parts to be 

 united should be firmly bound and held securely 

 to prevent friction by wind. If the bark is 

 removed from the parts to be placed in contact, 

 the union will be all the quicker. Novel arbours 

 have been constructed by planting a number of 

 young trees in a circle, then bending them over 

 and binding them firmly together at a height 

 of about 12 feet. Ultimately they unite and 

 appear to be one tree. [w. w.] 



CHAPTER XX. 



TRANSPLANTING. 



Need for Transplanting — Plants which bear it — 

 The best Season for it — How to Transplant. 



Transplanting is an important operation in 

 the cultivation of trees and shrubs. It is seldom 

 possible for perennial plants to be grown from 

 seed, or even from very small specimens, on the 

 spot they are to occupy permanently. Most 

 gardens are furnished and replenished with 

 plants raised in nurseries, and such plants, as 

 a rule, are of sufficient size to produce an im- 

 mediate effect, and may be five, ten, or fifteen 

 years old. For trees or shrubs like these to be 

 moved safely, transplanting will have had to be 

 done two, three, or even more times during the 

 previous life of the plant. Then alterations, 

 re-arrangements, and improvements in gardens 

 may render necessary the transplanting of even 

 large specimens. The operation, therefore, is 

 not only one that has to be continually practised, 

 but the health and welfare of almost every plant 

 in our gardens, parks, and woods is, or has been, 

 dependent in a great measure on its proper 

 performance. 



Trees and shrubs vary a good deal in their 

 capability of bearing the root-mutilation that 

 transplanting necessarily implies. Some will 

 scarcely bear it at all, as, for instance, the 

 common Gorse; such plants have, consequently, 

 to be grown in pots, or seed has to be sown 

 on the ground where the plants are required. 

 Others, like most of the deciduous members of 

 the Rose family, bear transplanting without 

 showing any ill effects. Generally, however, 

 transplanting is in itself an evil, although a 

 necessary one. Provided a tree is in its right 

 position and in proper soil it is better left alone. 

 That, however, is merely an academic view of 

 the matter. The operation is an unavoidable 

 one, and what we have to consider is the best 



way of doing it. Fruit-trees of over-vigorous 

 growth may often have their fruitfulness in- 

 creased by transplanting, but this, of course, is 

 merely a form of root -pruning — an operation 

 that is treated upon in the chapter on Pruning. 



In transplanting, every care should be taken 

 to preserve as many as possible of the true 

 feeding-roots of the plant. These are not the 

 thick, woody portions, whose functions in the 

 life-history of the plant are to serve as holdfasts 

 or anchors, and to act as conduits through which 

 food-matter is conveyed from the root-system 

 to the leaves; the real working portions are 

 the tips of the finest ramifications, and it is 

 these, or the fibres from which they immediately 

 spring, that it should be the aim to preserve. 

 However carefully the work is done these 

 delicate root-tips are more or less injured, and 

 a plant's capability of bearing transplanting 

 well, or the reverse, largely depends on its 

 power to quickly renew them. 



The question as to which is the best season 

 for transplanting depends in a great measure 

 on the plant itself. If plants are small enough, 

 or develop the roots compact enough to hold 

 the soil in which they are growing in a " ball " 

 to be removed along with them, there is scarcely 

 any season of the year at which they may not 

 be moved with safety. Rhododendrons and 

 allied plants whose roots form compact balls 

 are cases in point. Of course this does not 

 mean that they can be transported long dis- 

 tances by rail, &c, but that where they are not 

 out of the ground long enough for the roots to 

 dry, such plants may be shifted even in mid- 

 summer. It is not, however, in connection with 

 plants like these that the real problem of trans- 

 planting arises. They are simply taken from 

 one place to another, with the whole root- 

 system, and the soil it occupies, intact. It is 

 when, owing to the size of the plant, or its way 

 of rooting, or perhaps the distance it has to 

 travel, little or no soil can be taken with it, and 

 the roots are not only torn and injured, but also 

 much reduced, that the time as well as the 

 method of transplanting become important. 



Deciduous trees and shrubs, as a whole, can 

 be moved during the period when they are 

 destitute of foliage — say from October until 

 March. Even after they have started growing 

 they can be shifted safely, provided they are 

 watered during any dry time that may ensue. 

 On the whole, October and November are the 

 best months. At this period the weather is 

 usually moist and warm, and the plants get 

 thoroughly settled in the ground and the roots 



