I would prefer the plants be alive at the end of the trip.
April 6, 2009 7:27 PM   Subscribe

How do I move my plants? Can you recommend a good plant mover?

I'm planning to move from northern to southern CA later this year and am already starting to get nervous about how I'm going to move my plants. I'm strictly container-only, which makes things easier, but I have five enormous pots, two of which contain plants I'd be really sad to lose. (The other three, I could maybe be persuaded to part with.) I don't think we can fit all these plants in our car - they're pretty tall. Plus that's just kind of a lot of dirt for our car to accommodate.

Anyone have any experience with moving large potted plants? What do you wish you'd known? How did you pack the plants to minimally damage them? Can you recommend a specific mover? Any other tips?

Thanks!
posted by crinklebat to Home & Garden (4 answers total)
 
We did this last year for a move across Texas (we had plants plus other things that fell outside of what our corporate move would cover). Do you have a trailer hitch on your car? We found that it was very cheap to rent a one way U-Haul trailer. It had rails along the inside, and we used straps and movers blankets to secure everything to the straps.
posted by bwanabetty at 7:41 PM on April 6, 2009


I moved about 30 plants in containers 300km last year. Try to transport them in something (trailer/van) where they won't be blown about as you drive. I put the bigger ones in first and then wedged the smaller ones in the gaps between. If you have to stop along the way, don't park your car/van in the sun.

I watered mine the day before then put each container in a garbage bag so that it didn't leak water along the way. I also pruned them about 2 weeks before so that they wouldn't have as much foliage to support and to stop them blowing about so much.

Water them again when you arrive at the new place, and let them sit in a sheltered spot out of the wind for a week or two so they can acclimatize.
posted by girlgenius at 8:25 PM on April 6, 2009


I have three huge indoor trees, five shoulder high outside trees and a bunch of other plants up to waist high which I've moved a few times, twice over 500kms. We always moved them ourselves, hired a covered furniture trailer and did a trip just for the plants. It's a pain because it's a whole extra trip, but it wasn't stressful on us or the plants and everyone was happy at the end. Also realistically they wouldn't have fit with the furniture, we literally filled the whole trailer with plants. Don't underestimate how much space they'll take!

I definitely think a covered trailer or truck is essential. Lying them down will cause damage and mess and you don't want wind in the foliage (it'll strip the leaves). If you don't want to move them yourselves then a moving company should be able to do it. Just think of these like large fragile furniture. I'd have a good talk with them first about how they're going to approach the move. You want someone who will treat the plants carefully rather than just shove them in around your other furniture. In NZ at least self moving is always cheaper and personally I preferred the control.

Before we moved we let them dry out a fair bit first (not totally dry, some moisture will hold the dirt together, but you don't want drips either) and also pruned them. Might as well move as little as possible. Then we taped plastic shopping bags over the top of each pot to keep the soil in. For some pots I also taped the tray to the bottom of the pot as that gave a wider base.

For packing we happen to have a bookshelf without a back and laid on it's side that made a good grid for putting pots in, keeping them apart while still bracing them. Something like this is kind of important because the bottom of the pot is often fairly small compared to the overall bulk of the plant so it's hard to pack them in place. You really don't want things sliding, pots will break and plants will be crushed. At the same time you can often smoosh the foliage of different trees together a fair bit, just take your time putting them in and getting the branches to interweave. My really big plants have large enough pots to remain stable, so we just wrapped blankets around the pots for bulk and to stop rubbing. Then we liberally used the bars on the side of the trailer to tie ropes around all the pots. Ratchet tie downs were good, we ran a few the length of the trailer to give divisions (um, like an extra wall for bracing). Really it's all about creating grids to pack your pots into. You don't really want to tie the actual plant because it will rub but do tie as high as you can for stability. I think when I had more small plants we also put a desk in there to give those ones overhead protection, and I recall transporting one particular fern inside the microwave.

I'm hoping to move internationally next year so the plants won't be coming. But large good condition house plants actually have decent resale value so I'm going to sell the big ones to a company that rents plants to offices. You shouldn't have to resort to this, our plants always moved house way better than we did, but it's another option if things really don't work out.
posted by shelleycat at 8:57 PM on April 6, 2009


Having moved my plants from St. Louis to Philly a few years ago (~800 miles), I can offer some anecdotal advice. I watered them well and loaded them on the moving truck in a relatively safe corner. They spent approximately 8 days on the truck and in short-term storage (it was December), so temperatures were just above freezing. I didn't really do anything special - I had the mindset that if the plants survived, it would be great, but if they didn't, I wouldn't be too upset. All actually survived, although a few were a little dehydrated and drooping. A few weeks of ample sunlight and watering, as well as some healthy doses of miracle grow, was enough to bring them back to good health.

As a side note, I used Atlas as my moving company and they made me sign a waiver basically saying that they were not liable for the plants. But, since the plants survived, all was well!
posted by galimatias at 7:23 AM on April 7, 2009


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