More Gardening

Today we got stuck into some more gardening, transplanting Golden Cane Palms was the order of the day!

We have searched on a number of different occasions for instructions, for moving Palm trees. Last night Karren stumbled across one that outlined a very technical process.

1. Firstly remove about one third of the palm fronds from the tree.
2. Dig up the palm tree leaving a decent size root ball.
3. Dig a hole big enough for the root ball.
4. Put the palm in the hole and fill with dirt.
5. Water the palm.

Gee, we would never have thought to do it that way! The only step that was not obviously necessary was step one. After starting on the first tree the reason became immediately apparent! You remove the palm fronds that hinder your efforts to extricate the root ball at the base of the tree.

The Golden Cane Palms were tightly clumped like this.

We began moving the palms at the western corner of the front garden. The Palms were planted very tightly and in our opinion were not particularly well set out. We chose the ones we wanted transplant and roughed out where we wanted them to go, once decided we hooked in to the first and smallest of the three we wanted moved.

First two Palms in place

The little one in the centre of the above photo was first to be moved and planted, it wasn't too bad, but was very heavy and awkward to move. The bigger ones would be more problematic, twice the size and weight.

Hilux in place for winching the third Palm out.

We got into the second tree with a different plan. I hooked the winch on the Hilux to the Palm, dug up some of the roots then winched it out, this method proved to be much easier and a lot less back ache.

Third Palm ready to plant.

Given how dry and warm it has been, the ground was very hard and required a lot of effort to dig the 800mm diameter 400mm deep holes required for the two bigger Palms.

In the ground and tethered.

The two larger Palms were tethered to prevent them being blown over in the wind.

View looking north west

Karren and I were utterly exhausted after spending the best part of three hours moving the Palms so we cooled off with the girls in the pool!

Next week we move four more Palms from the eastern side of the garden, then commence the garden edging. We are slowly getting there!