Moving Rhubarb?

[w33blegurl]

HI All

Do you think it would be a disaster to move rhubarb at this point in the year? I know ideally I should have done this in the winter but didn't think of it then so here i am!

I inherited several rhubarb plants on my lottie and they are smothered in weeds. Trying to pull out all the nettles/bindweed/brambles/couch grass from around them is proving very difficult as everything is weaving through the rhubarb. It did very poorly last year, probably because of all the competition, but now I have a lot more space cleared I thought they might do better in a weed-free (relatively anyway) area that's had a good manuring.

Any thoughts - will I kill it or should I just go for it and hope for the best? Although given that is currently snowing, it may not be moved anytime soon...

Thanks!
Julia

[bearded bloke]

I planted this last week ..........




Not a whole plant but a sizable crown (which I was given by another member ) cut from a growing plant as you will see by the leaf size,dig a big hole at the new location,3/4 fill with well rotted manure/compost,water well,put dug earth on manure,put plant on mound,tread in & water well.

If you were to do the above to half your plants & leave half alone,if it did not work well you still have the others in reasonable health to move at the generally accepted time later in the year

[FB.]

I happened to need to scrabble around near one of my rhubarb crowns and although it has new shoots, there wasn't much root growth yet.
So I would say yes, it'll probably be OK to move it in the next few days if you really need to, but would have been better if done while it was dormant a couple of months ago.

Rhubarb which is transplanted often needs one season to settle in before pulling stems (depending how well it grows), in order to rebuild its strength.