transplanting natives

Hey, I moved here a year ago, and I love my woods. I have been doing a lot of clearing...removing privet, honeysuckle vine, and blackberries that have been choking out the good stuff.... revealing the beautiful natives.

My desire would be to move a few of these natives closer to the edge of the woods. I have native azaleas, ferns, oak-leaf hydrangeas, trillium, jack-in-the-pulpits, solomon's seal, etc. What do I need to do to move them successfully? If I wait until fall, will I be able to find the trilliums, solomons seal, and jacks?

This picture shows just a few of the many oak leaf hydrangeas in my woods.

I have one oak leaf hydrangea right at the edge of the woods and the blooms are much fuller.

Riviera Magazine May 2008

Questions for Aurélien Liutkus the talented Landscape Architect on planting a Mediterranean garden:

The Three Colours for the Riviera:

Camaieu blue like the sky and the sea,
shiny grey like the olive trees,
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Favourites:

Lights because a garden also lives in the evening. Who
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JulieQ, there is another forum just for native plants and very helpful people there. The little I do know is that you CAN transplant, however, as with transplanting anything, get as much of the surrounding soil as possible and plant them in as similar conditions that you can to the location they were in, as relates to shade/sun, etc. Also, check with your county extension agent.

JulieQ,
We're working on the same project! We built a house out in the country about 4 years ago. We cleared 5 1/2 acres for our house/yard and left the front 6 acres in woods. Now that I'm almost finished landscaping the yard, hubby and I are starting to clean up the woods across the creek. We're clearing out all the same stuff you're dealing with and replacing with dogwoods, ferns, oak leaf hydrangea, etc. I have dug up lots of wild plants to move to our woods. As bugme said, get as much of the soil as you can with each plant. Then what I do with smaller plants is pot them with their original soil and put them in a semi-shaded area close to the house so I can baby them all summer. By fall they are ready to plant out in the woods. I always wait till fall because it's so hot and dry during the summer and I can't always get all the way down there to water everything. It's worked great for me so far with very few losses. Your woods are beautiful. Can't wait till ours look that good. We're just cleaning up the edge on the bank of the creek--the rest will be left as is for the deer, fox, squirrels, rabbits, etc.

The Jack's are easy to move, just remember to dig deep when uprooting and keep them in a bog area, they like alot of water. Move them in the fall before it gets cold. As for the others you should keep them in a similar habitat as found in. Check online for info about native plants in your area. Most colleges will post a site as well the Dept of Ag.
Good Luck, native plants make for a beautiful garden and are nearly carefree once the settle in.

One thing to consider is that you'll be relocating all of those plants into higher light levels. Those are woodland species not necessarily transitional species or rather woodland's edge species although they can do quite well in those areas. You could be moving them from 60-70% shade into 30-40% shade and that might prove too much for some of the species you mentioned over time.

Regarding the jacks, I've got them here and have transplanted some from plant rescues as well as from other areas of my own property and what I always try to do is exactly as John_PL does which is to site them in a similar habitat to where they were found. I've found with jacks there are some that do in fact seem to like wetter feet but there are also others that seem to have been doing fine in upland woodland settings. Depends a lot on the particular population of jacks.

Something you might want to consider, as opposed to moving your healthy and happy parent plants, would be to collect seed and propagate them yourself for planting into other areas of your property. This leaves the parent plants in place.

When we run across a site that is going to be developed that we have access to and see a lot of spring ephemerals, we frequently use bright colored golf tees to mark where they are growing. This better enables us to find them again after they have died back to be able to dig them up from the site that is going to be excavated.

You mentioned you've been doing a lot of clearing! Good for you. Most people who garden for wildlife remove invasives religiously. This year I removed a boatload from an area on my property that I hadn't gotten to since we moved here. I found a surprise in that area. Sort of keeps you going when you find treats in and amongst the nasties. In other areas that I have cleared, I have been treated to a return of the natives. It's not uncommon to learn a seedbank exists on your property that was being supressed when the understory was choked out by invasives.

Asian Honeysuckles are generally shallow rooted and frequently come right out of the ground with a few good tugs from a riding lawn mower or quad leaving little of the root system behind. If you don't mind my asking, how have you been removing the privet? That's one that you might need to be using a combo approach on of mechanical and chemical lest it come back at you ten fold.

editing to correct a major typo- oops.

This message was edited Sep 14, 2008 12:10 PM

I will probably leave most of my parent plants right where they are. In fact, I am hoping to create some paths through the woods nearest the most interesting specimens. It is a huge job and I will keep plugging away as I can. My goal is to make the woods more easily navigable for visitors. I can move a few natives and not make a dent in it, that 's why I thought I'd get a few out while I was clearing paths anyway.

I have gotten most of the honeysuckle out of the trees. The young privet is not too bad, but the big, old ones are awful. If the stump is too big to dig out I have used the brush-b-gone full strength painted on the fresh cut. I have even had to do that to root sections. It will probably take a couple of years to be sure it doesn't keep reappearing. Awful stuff! My poison ivy is wicked, too.

I am not moving any jacks this year. Can't find 'em!