Moving fruit trees

[Mark the Bodger]

Hello,
I haven't been on this forum for a while but I know from last time that the advice I got was brilliant!

My mother in law is looking at moving house and wanted to take as many of the fruit trees from her garden as possible. All the trees will have been planted for at least 8 years. The fruit tress hold sentimental value.

I was thinking that I would be able to dig up the trees that have a trunk that are the same diameter as my wrist, but the longer established trees that have about a 3 inch diameter, the pears and the plums, i wondered if i could take cuttings or i have heard that you can wrap a ball of spoil / container around a branch and wait for Some roots to grow.

Can anyone help me with any of the above and if it is cuttings or wrapping, how big do the cuttings need to be etc.

Thank you for your time.

[ameno]

It's a little hard to judge just from the pictures, but I'd say all of those are probably movable, not just the smaller ones. You'll likely need to chop through any thicker roots, especially with the big ones, but they should still survive.
The bigger ones will want cutting back quite hard before moving, though, to compensate for the loss of roots. And obviously all will need to be kept well-watered in their first year.

If you wanted to make new plants from them instead, cuttings aren't really the way to go. Apples are best not grown on their own roots, as they tend to grow into very large trees which give poor crops relative to their size.
Instead, you should graft them into new, more dwarfing rootstocks (for trees the size you have there you probably want M26 rootstock, assuming reasonably good soil, or MM106 on poor soil).
You could either try grafting them yourself (rootstocks cost a few pounds each from suppliers), or you could try to find a nursery near you which will do it for you. Either way, you will want cuttings of the previous year's growth, about pencil thickness, with a minimum of two buds.

[Mark the Bodger]

Thank you very much for your help!

Looks like I'm going to have to get digging!

[ChingfordHarry]

There's a lot of mystique about grafting, but I've found it's really not that hard - at least for apples and pears (on the other hand, my attempts at grafting cherries have all failed over many years!). I got a bunch of MM106 from GB Online a few years ago and 9 out of 10 took (I use a saddle graft which is quick and easy, much easier than a whip and tongue - there are some videos online by a guy called Stephen Hayes that I found to be extremely helpful). I've also used a cleft graft when the scions were a bit weedy (about half the width of a pencil) for some Court Pendu Plat (which doesn't grow very strongly), and that worked well, too.

This is a good time of year to take scions - wrap them in damp kitchen roll, put in a in a plastic bag and put them in your 'fridge until just before the rootstock starts into growth (how on earth do you know when "just before" is? I guessed!). I've stored pear scions for 6 months like that and they've still taken (scions taken for bud grafting originally, but I forgot about one and just tried it).

id tend to do some grafting even if you try moving the trees - it's incredibly satisfying to do, and it gives you some insurance.

[Mark the Bodger]

Thank you again. I might have a go at the grafting then. Nothing to lose!!

[Dave8abond]

If you fancy trying to graft a few trees you could make lots of practice grafts by using prunings taken from the trees when you hard prune prior to digging them up. Just sit down with a big pile of last year's growth prunings, pick 2 bits, pretend one is the rootstock and the other the scion and practice your cuts. This will show which types of graft you find the easiest and help to get cleaner cuts when you do it for real.