a grapevine question

Do we have any grape experts here?

I have a friend with an established arbor of grapes (concords, I think), and, due to illness, they are about to move from this home and have given us the grape vine if we want it. Can anyone give us directions how best to go about moving a pretty large, established grape? I don't think I have the luxury of shovel trimming the roots and coming back in spring and digging it up then, as one does with trees in the wild.

Is it safe to simply dig it up as best we can, trim roots and top, and pop it in a new hole at our house? We llive in Southern Ohio and we have perhaps a month to go before hard freeze.

Melis

It doesn't sound like you have any other options so you might as well give it a try--just make sure you get as much of the roots as possible when you dig it up.

Are you familiar with grape roots, do they typically go very deep? They don't do the tap root thing, do they? Do you think a couple of paunchy middle-agers with more will than strength--well, in my case anyway, Don's pretty strong, reckon we could get it in a couple hours work?

M

I've only transplanted one that was pretty small and hadn't been in the ground for that long, so for a big vine I'm not sure what to expect. I don't think they have a tap root but I'm not positive. As far as how long it'll take--hard to say without seeing the vine. If it's one of those super huge ones that's covered an entire pergola then it'll take you a while, but if it's just normal size then it shouldn't be bad. It also depends on what the ground's like, if it's dry and clay-ish then it'll be tough, but if it's rained recently or the soil is nice and loose then it won't be as bad.

we're fortuinate to live in a genuine river valley. We typically have about two feet of fluffy, friable black topsoil. I don't anticipate much of a problem that way.

Now watch it make a liar out of me.

M