If at all possible, wait until leaf drop in fall for the best success in transplanting, if that isn't possible and the weatherman says a few cool days and perhaps some rain, then go for it. Hot weather and transplanting really don't mix very well.

Radar:

Do not try to transplant bareroot trees if they have begun to leaf out and are in active growth. You run a serious risk of losing some of them; I can't tell you exactly how many out of a dozen. Whether or not you can irrigate is not a factor.

By all means wait at least until late fall after leaves have dropped and the trees have entered full dormancy.

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

If it is impossible to avoid, you can transplant them to a shady spot or create shade with shade cloth. The commercial nurseries use misting as well. Also if you ball up enough soil trees can be transplanted safely anytime but it is a lot of work and requires some skill.

Thank you all for your input. My feeling was I needed to wait until after leaf drop, but my husband thought it would be worse. So I will wait until then and use the summer to get their new area better prepared with a cover crop.

Apples hold onto leaves deep into fall. You can strip off the last of the leaves which somebody from Cornell recommends for fall planting. Never saw the data though, and I wonder if those last leaves might help generate a little new fine root before winter.

I fall transplant hundreds of fruit trees every year and often do it bare-root, even for trees up to 3" diameter. You just save as much root as reasonable. Moving heavy soil balls is not fun, and you end up with 2 different soils, which can cause problems if there is significant difference in texture (sandy to clay for instance).

Just have everything ready to go at new site before digging up and do all the work in one day. Having a cultivating fork with curved blades (like a mattock but with heavy tines) is almost essential to pull away dirt without damaging the roots too much. Or you could rent an air-spade which uses pressurized air to remove dirt without damaging roots.

I'm transplanting 7 arbor vitae today (about 4ft tall, couple years in the ground). I said screw it and i need them moved since i'm redoing my lawn this fall and they are totally in the way. They are being moved to a shaded spot, its raining today and is suppose to through Monday and stay only in the 50's and 60's... We'll see how it works out! Water them well before moving.

Well, the worst that could happen is losing a few arbor vitae. It's a definate win-win.

i have $28 invested... I lose them all i won't shed a tear :) They were little HD trees a few years ago... I don't really like them anymore, but didn't want to throw them. They've actually done OK given the crappy soil, weed infestation around them. Will be interesting to see how well they transplant given the size of the rootball (pretty big)...

Hman wrote:

"You can strip off the last of the leaves which somebody from Cornell recommends for fall planting. Never saw the data though, and I wonder if those last leaves might help generate a little new fine root before winter."

Last fall I moved several young trees from their locations in order to install tile and more mounds. At that point leaf drop hadn't started yet, but I went ahead and stripped the leaves off anyway. Didn't seem to have any problems. A couple of apples I replanted even set fruit this spring. I later accidentally thinned off the apples on those two trees (along with some apples on bigger trees). However, this soil seems to be very fertile, so that may have made the difference.

I've always had very good looking moving any plants during rainy periods of weather... Also shading seems to help. I've got a bunch of peach seedlings i need to dig up sometime soon.

Actually, I know landscape contractors who move stuff in the middle of summer by stripping all the leaves so I'm sure the Cornell rec would work fine, I'm just not sure that a few leaves on the tips of branches would be a big dessication problem.

I like the idea of a fall transplanted tree sending out some new root before winter sets in and if I was paid to do research I'd see if those leaves don't help generate more new root.

I one's bought a little leaf linden, when looking at it in the nursery, it was in the ground perhaps for 7 or more years,
[undug] was about 12 foot tall, all leafed out, they guaranteed for the leaf to stay on, they planted it.
Sure enough, those leaves never looked like that anything was happening to the tree, they sprayed it with something,
some kind of oil, I sure would like to know what they used. It was a old guy...just going out of business, too bad
I didn't ask what he used.

>>I like the idea of a fall transplanted tree sending out some new root before winter sets in This only works for warmer zones, I would not recommend for zone 3.

Konrad