OT. Question on Replanting Redcedar Trees

I have been cleaning along some fence rows over the winter. Gained about 30' of farm ground in some areas. I have found several small trees - I believe they are Eastern Redcedar. I would like the replant these to an area where they can mature. Does anyone have experience with these trees? Are there any tips to replanting? Thanks in advance.

They have a tap root so you need to dig them deep , Don't worry to much about width.

How big? anything over 2 feet, get a tree spade type mover.

I always thought thoes things grow evertwhere,around here if ground sits idle for a year they sprout up everywhere.My father hated them and he would pull every one up he could

jimmy

Kill them while you can - they spread like the weeds
they are.

You should be able to move up to 3 footers fairly easy. They have a taproot more similar to a deciduous tree, maple, etc. not wide running roots like a spruce.

Move like any other tree. You may need to stake it depending on how much wind you get.

Rick

Digging up established trees and replanting them can be a choir and be prepared to water through the summer if our rains are infrequent again.

You might want to consider planting them in pots for this year. Reason being you could move them under partial shade and have less of a choir of watering them. Once you dig them up and cut the tap root you'll be fighting stressing the tree for the summer. Then plant them out in the fall when the temps cool and more,frequent rains.

Just to let you know, Texas Forestry Service sells bare root seedlings in bundles of 30 for pretty cheap.

Also, if you have any allergy sufferers in your family, it's the cedars with the reddish ting to them that are the males and are releasing pollen. I eradicate those.

I've been in my current house on 8/10 of an acre in a subdivision for almost 18 years. I have woods on the north and west sides of my property, and the majority of the trees on the property are poplars. I decided I wanted some cedars, so I started transplanting some of the 8"-12" "volunteer" red cedar trees that popped up in the side yard, into something with a pattern. Our soil is mostly red clay, but there's some loamy soil in the woods.

I started out planting them 10 feet apart; About 5-7 years ago I cut down every other one, so that I had some rows that I could mow between more easily. So I went from 15 trees to 7-8 there, and they're now all about 12-15 feet high now. When I first planted them, I staked around them so that my son wouldn't mow them down, and the first couple of weeks I watered them a couple of times a week. After about a month, I let nature take care of them.

While I got fairly lucky with these, the ones I planted to try to stop erosion on my hillside didn't fare as well. Seems they were shaded pretty well by the oaks in the woods on the west and my poplars to their immediate east...so they apparently didn't get enough sunlight to thrive, in my non-expert opinion, because otherwise I didn't do anything differently with them than I did with the ones that lived.

Your mileage may vary, of course.

We have to burn pastures to keep them from taking over. They do make a nice windbreak around the farmstead.

they cause apple-cedar rust on apple trees also, be
aware of that if you have apple trees.

frank

They're pretty rugged. I've moved several by cutting a circle into the ground with a shovel then tying a strap to something mounted on the 3pt hitch and ripping the tree out of the ground. It breaks off the tap root and usually pulls up a decent root ball; the tree always survives.

You are right get rid of them. They will take over the country side..That is the reason for Wildfires in Oklahoma. They explode like a bomb.
gitrib

About 15 years ago I started transplanting these trees across the front of my property. Not having access to a backhoe I did it with a shovel. I could only transplant trees which were 4'tall or less. Any taller and I ended up cutting the tap root and the tree would die. Then being in North Texas I had a lot of trouble keeping them watered enough to survive the hot summers so I only had a 50% survival rate. If they made it through the first summer they lived.

(quoted from post at 18:08:38 03/17/12) I have been cleaning along some fence rows over the winter. Gained about 30' of farm ground in some areas. I have found several small trees - I believe they are Eastern Redcedar. I would like the replant these to an area where they can mature. Does anyone have experience with these trees? Are there any tips to replanting? Thanks in advance.

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I've transplanted a bunch of the red cedars. Never worried much about the size. If I thought I could pick it up and set it in the truck, I dug it up. Never worried about that tap root either. Just made sure I got a good ball of dirt with the tree. Nearly always got them back into the ground within an hour or so of digging them up. Never worried much about watering them either, unless it was really hot and dry. Very few didn't make it.

I lived ( got black topped a couple of years ago) on a dusty
county road and when I built my house back in '79; only 3 cars
per day passed; very low population density then. 10ish years
ago, the county put in a traffic counter and asking, was told that
it recorded like 160 cars per day.

I started going around the area and collecting cedars of all types
and have planted 160 of them. Maybe only lost 1 or 2 early on.

I deliberately selected small trees so that I could get a good root
system, 2' tall thereabouts, with about 1' of dirt (diameter). Dug
as deep as the billdookie (sharpshooter) would go.

Brought them home and dug a hole and planted; elapsed time
out of the soil less than an hour.

Kept them watered and the rest is history. I have really enjoyed
the privacy and noise reduction and would do it again in a
heartbeat. When I fertilize the yard in the spring I ensure that I
get them fertilized too (use a tractor mounted conical spreader).

Only thing that threatens them now is a little light green
butterfly with a spot on each wing that comes through in the
spring and produces bag worms. If allowed to progress they will
kill a tree.

Control is easy. Use my 15 gallon TSC sprayer with 12v motor
and apply the Bayer brand multi purpose poison, in the blue
container that I get for a very reasonable price at Lowes.

Mark

I'm in the kill them while you can crowd, spent half my life it seems fighting russian thistles, cedars and hedge tress. We are growing a cow herd and every pasture I have been able to get has been infested with these three.

They grow wild here. If you have a pasture that you haven't mowed
for a few years, expect to see some. I keep mine mowed or grazed
and sometimes while mowing I can see one sitting there just waiting
for an excuse to grow up to be a big tree......an excuse it doesn't
get.

Mark