How to Move a Japanese Maple Tree

Japanese maples should be moved in fall, after their leaves have dropped.

Japanese maple trees, with their feathery, multi-lobed foliage and many colors, are prized focal points in home landscapes or as bonsai specimens. They grow well in U.S. Department of Agriculture plant hardiness zones 4 to 8. Japanese maples come in many forms, with branches that are weeping, mounded or spreading. They also have a wide range of mature height, from 2 to 30 feet tall. If it becomes necessary to move your Japanese maple tree, there are precautions you should take to make sure it survives the move and thrives in its new location.

Things You'll Need

• Bypass pruning shears
• Pole lopper
• Garden fork
• Garden spade
• 2-foot length of PVC pipe
• Pebbles
• Coffee grounds
• Mulch
• Compost
• Shredded hardwood mulch

Instructions

1. Move your Japanese maple tree in the fall, when it has the best chance of recovering from the shock of being transplanted. Japanese maples are most vulnerable in the spring and should not be disturbed then unless there is no choice.

2. Prune your Japanese maple to remove about 20 percent of its leaf surface before digging it up. Fewer leaves will reduce the tree's demand for water and make recovery from the loss of roots easier. Examine the shape of your tree carefully from all angles. Remove or shorten branches that won't change the overall look of your tree too drastically, using bypass pruning shears and a pole lopper.

3. Prepare a planting hole in the tree's new location before you start digging it up. This ensures that the maple's exposed roots spend as little time as possible uncovered. Dig the new hole about four times the width of the root ball you expect to take.

4. Dig another hole at the bottom of the transplant hole if your soil contains a great deal of clay. Make the hole 2 feet deep and just off-center, using a posthole digger. Insert a 2-foot length of PVC pipe in the hole. Fill it with pebbles to improve the drainage in the heavy soil.

5. Loosen the soil around the tree by gently working it with a garden fork until you can reach in by hand and coax some longer roots out of the soil.

6. Dig the rest of the root ball with your garden spade, being careful not to disturb the roots you have freed by hand. Lift out the tree with as much of a root ball as you can manage to transport in a wheelbarrow or drag on a plastic tarp.

7. Set the tree in the hole you prepared in the new location. Arrange the roots so they spread throughout the hole.

8. Add compost, mulch and a few pounds of coffee grounds to the soil you removed from the new hole. Mix in the materials well; they should account for about 30 percent of the material you will use to refill the hole. Refill the hole using the soil you have removed, mixed with generous amounts of compost, mulch and a few lbs. of spent coffee grounds.

9. Refill the hole around the tree roots with the amended soil. Tamp the soil. Spread a 3-inch layer of shredded hardwood bark.

10. Water the Japanese maple tree at least three times per week after planting.

Tips & Warnings

• A University of California study found that frequent watering in the first year after transplanting was the single most effective way of assuring a tree's survival. It is the constancy of the watering, rather than the amount, that is important.

• Reduce stress on your tree by removing accumulations of snow as soon as possible. Do not attempt to remove ice.

• Fertilize only twice per year -- once in early spring and again in July.

References

• Eastwoods Nurseries: Care of Japanese Maples
• Walter Reeves: Japanese Maple -- Moving