What plants you can transfer from one climate zone to the next Question
My wife and I are in the process of moving from NW Iowa to Boise/Meridian, Idaho. We have done much landscaping here, including a pond, and are curious about what works in Boise/Meridian, and if some of the items we have here, will do well if we try to transplant them there.
The buyers of our house have agreed to let us remove a certain portion of plants from the landscape. Mostly we would bring perennials and bulbs - some hostas, daylilies, coral bells, lily bulbs, a clump of trilliums, some clumps of Virginia bluebells, sedums, balloon flowers. We might try to bring one of our large-leaf rhododendrons (in the ground just a few years) and a yellow-flowering non-invasive honeysuckle vine. We would also bring two tree peonies (in the ground 2-3 years.) If any of these wouldn't do well, please let us know.
There are two small trees that the buyer of our house would likely remove, due to their location. Each is about 5 years old, and about 1.5" diameter at about 2' above the ground. I don't know if it's even possible to remove and transplant these trees, but since they're likely to be removed anyway, if there's any possibility it will work, I'd like to try. They are each about 8' tall at this point. One is a Korean maple (acer pseudosieboldianum, I think) that colors beautifully in the fall, and the other is an uncommon variety of mountain ash (sorbus rufoferruginea.) (A) Is it even possible to dig up and transplant such trees, and if so what recommendations would you give about doing so and transporting and caring for them, and (B) do these types of trees do well in the Boise/Meridian area, or would they just die there anyway?
Answer
Well first of all welcome to Idaho and thanks for looking us up.
Most of the plants you listed we sell here in Idaho so they should have no problems. The only ones I would worry about are the trilliums and the Rhododendrons. Trilliums need a lot of shade and a very organic rich soil to do well. We have mostly hard clay and depending on where you are moving shade may be a problem. We do sell rhododendrons but they are very touchy here as again they prefer a richer soil than what most people can provide and they also like a slightly acidic ph and we have a very alkaline soil. They also prefer a lot of shade especially in the summer during the hottest parts of the day.
Your Maple tree would probably do fine here as we are a USDA zone four and so is your maple. The Ash tree however looks to be a zone six so it probably would do well in the cold winters we can get here. Neither of these trees are ones I have ever sold or remember seeing at other nurseries in the area. As for taking your maple cross country, it is going to be pretty tuff. A tree that has been in the landscape for five years would be considered well established. At the growers this tree would be root pruned yearly and dug for balled and burlap to ship. For you to successfully dig that tree up you would need to dig quite a large ball of dirt around the roots to minimize the damage to the roots. Then to take it cross country it would probably need to be in a refrigerated box trailer so that it could conserve moisture otherwise it would dry out long before you got it here. So if it is going to get taken out any way you could try but realistically without the right equipment the odds are not in your favor. Tree peonies are a plant I have no experience with. I did a little research on them and it looks like they would technically be hardy here depending on the variety but I would suspect if we had a really cold winter they might not make it. However regular peonies do very well here so if they are anything like those they may be fine.
I hope this helps and if you need anything else please don’t hesitate to ask.
Nolan Guthrie
Chinden Zamzows store manager
208-846-7830
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