Well, my stepfather just informed me that he is selling the family farm, where we've lived for years. Forget figuring how I'm going to deal with all the four-legged beasties, what am I going to do with my PLANTS????
I refuse to leave all my beautiful acquisitions, many with personal memories of the long-gone friends who gave them to me, to the attentions of a new owner. I don't know when I am going to move, and I'm concerned about doing it in a way that will least traumatize my plants. My gardens are huge so there is no way I intend to move everything, but some of everything is what I'm aiming for.
Can anyone recommend a comprehensive site for determining the best way to approach moving my stuff? I have everything from grasses to small trees to rosebushes to euphorbias, and I need to get some sense of how to handle their respective moves, depending on what time of year this occurs. Does this make sense?
Callen Molenda wrote: what am I going to do with my PLANTS????
Don't despair! When I had to move, it took me a week of digging and moving plants to just drop them off at the new place. It only took one day to move the household. I didn't move any trees, but moved three huge hydrangia, about twenty boxwood babies, hosta's, and a whole lot of perennials. My garden was all shade/part shade, and I moved into full sun. It wasn't easy, but almost everything survived. I did it all by myself, without missing a day of work too. I was pretty scratched up, and had some nasty looking hands for a while, but felt great about the job I had done.
Just be absolutely sure the buyer knows they will be buying the property minus all the plantings. Make sure your stepfather and any realtors know of your intentions also. Nice gardens can add value to a property. So be sure the property is appraised minus the gardens. Good Luck.
Callen, you might not recall that 14 years ago I was faced with a move that I DID NOT want to make to Eastern Tennessee from my home in Nashville I'd lived in since 1974 (minus the 5 years in Denver) which was one street over from my parent's house where I'd lived since 1958. In July of 1992, Squire informed me that I WAS moving, get the house packed and expect him on August first.....................which was my son's birthday and he was in Louisiana with a new baby which I hadn't seen yet as well. Too much going on, I literally dug my whole yard with the help of a dear friend who had a toddler at the time, and I must say, frantically digging beloved perennials CAN be done! The soil over here was nothing like what I'd had for years, I had dark, loose, loamy soil in Nashville, here it was gummy red clay with lots of rocks and no way to dig into it, especially in late summer.
The solution was containers of any variety. I used plastic grocery bags as pots with handles for perennials and bulb clumps. Larger perennials I dug up and put into five gallon buckets, any containers that were planted stayed planted, I even used trash cans! (a clump of huge Heliopsis was one plant I put in a trash can, the other was my dad's old Indian shot canna's)
it's early spring. dig up beloved perennials and pot them up nursery like so they'll adjust to the pots. Bulbs you adore, you can mark the spots, dig them up after they flower and bag for fall planting. Lilies that you have, dig them up when they break dormancy and pot into 3 gallon nursery pots. they'll be fine. Most perennials will not mind a time in a container. Some shrubs won't mind either, but you can possibly take cuttings of some right now on tender growth. and they'll be smaller but at least you'll have a piece of them to take to your new place.
any way you could buy the farm? And call friends who have yards you can safely hold your plants over when you finally do have to move. Be sure to tell any prospective buyers that some of the plantings WON'T be there upon sale.
My gardens are huge so
then take a little of everything. The rose bushes, are they heirloom? could a section of your farm with the house and property around it be purchased? The rest of the acreage be sold?? Could you work a deal with him on that?
yes it does. I suspect that the roses will need digging up completely, if they're antiques you can't replace.......I can't advise you there, but sure if you e-mail Bev (pottingshed) she can help you there.
Well, it was just appraised at over $1 million....
And the mention of buying (my) part of it immediately raised unexpected (although they shouldn't have been unexpected) reactions from future beneficiaries of monies generated by the sale.
Well, I guess the lesson there is never invest in land you don't own. Others here have had some good suggestions for your plight.
As a further thought, the "future beneficiaries" may object to your removing the plants because it may affect the sale value of the land.
In a similer situation I was told 'He who owns the land, owns the plants, no matter who bought and planted them'. You may need to check your legal standing in this situation.
I know my Christmas Card list would have just gotten a bit shorter.
Bill wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news-sjc.supernews.com:
i seriously doubt that. a farm appraised at one million is going to a housing developer & all those plants will be bulldozed. the future beneficiaries are short-sighted morons.
i'm pretty sure the plants will be better off if they go to a new home, rather than stay. the small trees will be the most difficult to move successfully. i'd be stocking up on 1 & 5 gallon pots and sticking things in as i could, starting as soon as possible.
It wasn't mentioned what the purchaser was intendingto do with the land, but you're probably right. OTOH, I'd make sure I had it in writing that I would be permitted to remove the plants. Always keep your six o'clock covered.
I'd put money on it.
If they meant a great deal to me, I'd see about getting an arborist to professionally move them.
Bill
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It won't go to a developer. The land is in conservation easements, and there were only 2 division rights to begin with. There are 70 acres, and it's a horse farm.
I do trust my stepfather to make good decisions and I'm not angry with him for selling, just disappointed that I have to move.
I have seen 5 acres with no improvements offered at $300K here in Albemarle County.
when i moved....and it was to a WAY different location: from utah to the willamette valley in oregon, i hired one of those small U-HAUL trailers and hitched it to my station wagon (one of those queen elizabeth II ships). it wasn't so much the move as the new owner of the house informing me she was going to have EVERYTHING i'd lovingly planted and replaced with grass (i wish i could have seen her face when the drought hit utah for 7 years!!!) i dug up almost everything and put them in those cheap black pots you get from nurseries....i even dug up my spearmint and a 5 yr. old Fagus sylvatica 'tricolour'---EVERYTHING survived their trip beautifully...but then again, i moved during a warm season so they wouldn't be damaged in trips over the mountains. i checked on them each night when i stopped and talked to them and made sure they were feeling okay and not traumatised.
and, when, finally, we pulled up to our new home in the armpit of central oregon (philomath-no evil letters, please...it REALLY IS the armpit of central oregon!!!!!!), everybody was happy but more than ready to be planted, which i did, even before checking out the house or moving my own stuff in. the plants, after all, were more important than my own stuff, IMHO.
one thing, callen, you MUST check before planting your babies.....is the WATER SUPPLY!! the person who sold me that little piece of hell on earth sold me a property with water which had such a HIGH content of sodium, it killed EVERYTHING i'd brought with me, inside AND outside the house. it's not good to be a gullible and trusting person (such as i); when i had seen the house on my "scouting trip," the water had been mysteriously turned off because, i was told by the owner, "my son turned it off to fix the plumbing under the kitchen sink and the toilet in the master bathroom, both of which were leaking." stupid me!!! i believed it.
so, PLEASE...check out EVERY ASPECT of your plants' new home....make sure EVERY LITTLE THING is in its place and will be good for the babies.....otherwise, you could end up like me---5 acres of DEAD PLANTS.
and YES!!! i DID knock my head against the walls for MONTHS AFTERWARD!! i, personally, was responsible for killing all my babies. (VERY BIG SNIFF)
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