Just today I pulled these little spruce trees up out of the ground, exposing the roots like this. If I carefully replant them tomorrow in another area with proper soil/nutrients, etc., should they continue to thrive, or is the only way they can live is if I had dug up around them, the entire bunch of soil ("root ball")?
http://i207.photobucket.com/albums/b...1/IMG_1114.jpg

 

They'll probably grow. Thats pretty much what they do when they replant a burned or logged off area. They just drive a tool in to open the ground, stick the seedling in, step on the side to seat it.

Don't leave the roots exposed though, keep them wrapped in wet newspaper or similar until ready to plant and get them in the ground soon.

 

Okay, but these little trees are way past the seedling stage; they're over a foot tall, and the tallest there is more like two feet. There are several more like this I want to pull up out of the ground like this, then replant elsewhere. A couple of them are between three and four feet tall, and will take two guys to pull up out of the ground this way without digging. My concern is whether when you pull them out this way that it might be tearing root branches off to the extent where the tree wouldn't survive after replant. Or does that not matter, can you do it this way no matter the size of the tree, as long as you're strong enough to yank it out?

 

Ahh ok couldn't get a good idea of the size from the pic.

Still think the same applies. I pulled up a maple seedling that was growing beside my house..it was probably 2-2 1/2' tall. Came out by the roots. Stuck it in a bucket of dirt for a year just to see what happened...was still growing, so I finally planted it in my front yard. When I moved 2 yrs ago it was about 25' tall and 8" or so at the base.

You would be better loosening the dirt with a spade fork I would think..but spruces that size won't really have much of a root system. The second one from the right in the pic loooks like the most developed roots.

 

Ok thanks Gunguy. I yanked 18 of them out of the ground and got em planted like you said. But I don't see them growing yet...

 

Sgull, with no disrespect to Gunguy, ripping them out of the ground is NOT the way to go. You are ripping the roots and not cutting them cleanly, thereby allowing fungus and bacteria to enter. Bareroot trees are usually planted when they are dormant or in slow growth. I would suggest you dig out the larger ones and at least loosen the soil before you pull out the small ones. You should find this helpful.
http://www.forestry.umn.edu/extensio...ingTheMove.pdf
http://www.forestry.umn.edu/extensio...ingTheMove.pdf

Newt

 

Okay Newt thanks. I kinda figured that doing it the right way would probably be having do do it the hard way. The main reason I was wanting to just rip them out of the ground was because the surrounding soil was along the side of a roadway and was impacted with rocks, very hard to dig out carefully with just a shovel. If the little wild trees would have been allowed to continue to thrive there they would eventually grow too big and overgrown the roadway, so they had to be either cut down or transplanted elsewhere. If it was critical that these transplanted trees would survive the transplant, I probably would have attempted a more horticulturally correct method instead of just yanking. So far though, the transplanted yankers seem to be hangin' in there fine, no obvious sign yet that they're hurting, but still a little early to tell probably.

 

Sgull, you are very welcome! If you find you must yank them, at least have pruners and trim the ends of the broken and torn roots so there is a clean cut. It will give them a better chance to heal the trauma.

Newt