Moving a 40-ton oak tree with excavators - GIF

[Jon]

Moving a 40-ton oak tree with excavators.




Moving a massive petrochemical splitter - GIF and video
Moving a 750+ ton continuous catalytic regeneration reactor - photo
Moving marble - GIF

[Frank S]

If there had been such a majestic live oak on any of my projects I would have tried to save it as well.
I have to question their setting the horizontal drill at the level to make such a shallow platform out of pipes for the root ball though And hopefully they began their excavation at the drip line and folded as many of the lateral roots back into the root ball to be spread out after relocating. the lateral roots can extend 1/3rd the distance again farther than the drip line and many deep vertical roots grow down from them . If they cut all of those roots back to the size of the ball then that tree is going to die

[ranald]

If there had been such a majestic live oak on any of my projects I would have tried to save it as well.
I have to question their setting the horizontal drill at the level to make such a shallow platform out of pipes for the root ball though And hopefully they began their excavation at the drip line and folded as many of the lateral roots back into the root ball to be spread out after relocating. the lateral roots can extend 1/3rd the distance again farther than the drip line and many deep vertical roots grow down from them . If they cut all of those roots back to the size of the ball then that tree is going to die

I thought as much also. Some trees have shallow root systems but that just looks wrong. I've moved plenty of trees (not that big) and usually did extreme crown pruning to balance the main & feeder root severing. It's a lot easier to crown prune before moving it & that obviously reduces weight & overall size considerably. They've already taken metres from the lateral feeder root system so WHY NOT THE CROWN?

On a smaller note, Some trees that have only a foot or less diameter it is much better for it, and does little damage to various parts creating quicker recovery with new growth, to simply drill and fit a very large bolt through and lift (after ripping around and under the root system).Some handy sling work is necessary. I've also found it advantageous to keep it facing the same direction relative to the sun once transplanted ( & paint a vertical stripe on the base of the bole accordingly; cause confusion can rule).

Marking N (or S) works really well with tricky small species like grass trees (xanthorrhoea sp.) that can be thousands of years old and only a couple of metres high: burning them back to the stem also helps success as well as digging/cutting the roots in stages allowing some cut roots to recover before continuing.

[Frank S]

In a neighborhood where I once lived the streets were lined along both sides evenly spaced with trees, which were planted there when the community had first been established back in the days of the model "T". All of the streets were obviously quite narrow and restrictive to traffic by the standards of modern times. Some bright and upcoming council members decided that the trees would have to go in order to widen the streets. Which in turn raised a huge conflict between the local residents and the city council. Finally it was decided that a test project to relocate some of the trees would be the best course to try. Long story shortened the relocation endeavor was a dismal failure percentage wise and financially, so the entire street widening project was scrapped and all of the streets save for a few were converted to one direction travel the ones that were widened lost all of the trees. In the end no one was happy

[ranald]

My local council,Noosa, loves trees but do do some silly tree things. They plant avenues to beautify the streets but the trees sit close to the kerb & neat concrete walkways: in the rainforest these would reach 30m but in the open select species reach about 6 m but their roots still travel way beyond the 1/2 m space.

My biggest tree gripe is when they grade a nearby road , some bright spark decided to do some benching so a water truck could have easy access to our creek. It didn't occur to the culprit that I had planted out that area and young trees 4 to 5 metres high destroyed. not using that spot would mean driving an extra 50 metres to another spot not regenerated, or 5 Ks to town to use processed water. The greenie Deputy Mayor (his portfolio) & admin both ignored my emails. Don't give a hoot!