People ripping out trees to make room for others and other unwanted treees

General Fruit Growing
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Several people have remarked recently that they plan to rip out some fruit trees that haven’t worked out all that well for them to make space for other trees. (In some cases it was due to the tree not being very well suited to that area, in a recent example it was that some trees needed a lot of spraying and the person didn’t want to do this, etc.)

May I make a suggestion?

If someone is going to rip out a healthy tree that they don’t want to keep, others might appreciate it if the tree could be gifted (with the recipient paying postage if it was shipped) or sold inexpensively to someone who would like to have it.

Yes, I realize that in practice many such trees couldn’t be disposed of in this way; for example if they were too large to dig out of the ground intact without an excessive amount of work being put into it.

Just a thought. (And if anyone plans to get rid of trees that could be candidates for giving away, you are welcome to let me know.)

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Unless you plan to give it to a nearby neighbor most people aren’t going to bother driving a significant distance to get a tree. But even if a neighbor accepts the tree they will still have to deal with the undesirable characteristics that made you remove the tree anyway.

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Lots of times that does not work out as well as it sounds. The season they are ripping them out may be spring or summer.

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In some cases, it could be possible to mail the tree (e.g., still dormant, not too large) or otherwise ship it.

If the issue is that a specific type doesn’t do well in a particular climate, it might be perfectly well suited to some other location.

You are quite right in that some problems may show up wherever you are.

As you imply by the reference to driving, sending it via USPS, UPS, FedEx, or whatever may often not be a viable solution.

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BTW, my last post was in reply to speedster1. (Clarkinks’ post showed up after I started writing.)

Clarkinks, you also make a good point as to the timing.

I was just thinking of cases where it might be possible to salvage a perfectly good tree. I realize this would be the exception rather than the rule.

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I can see your point. It probably only works if another grower lives close by, the tree(s) is small (otherwise shipping will be expensive) and is dug during dormant. Quite a criteria to meet.

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If I had a tree that was causing me problems and required excessive spraying, I wouldn’t give it to a neighbor. They wouldn’t want to spray it either and the disease/pest pressure would spill over, impacting me as well. I think the best thing to do is to make use of the roots and graft something better over it. By the time most people decide to get rid of something, the roots are pretty big and hard to dig.

One thing that I have given away is potted trees, when I decided that I had enough of something planted in ground already (apples for instance). I can take a cutting to keep the variety…

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I rarely permanently remove a tree because grafting or relocating in my orchard usually takes care of what was wrong. With that said I pulled out a small apple tree yesterday simply because it constantly kept sending up root suckers (unknown root). I replaced it with a M111/Bud9 interstem. I would not pass this tree with it’s problem on to anyone else. I think when there are no problems with the tree and you can pass it on to others it is a great idea and I have done this on a few occasions. Bill

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I suspect the causes of this are multiple fold, we have people living on ever smaller plots of land, I know if you look at real estate listings where I live you see the distict trend to put larger and larger houses on smaller and smaller plots of land. I had a conversation regarding this topic with a real estate developer a couple of years ago, and he told me the main reason was the ever increasing cost of streets when putting in a subdivision, most of this cost is governement requirements for things like sewers, concrete curbs, paviement thickness, etc. Add to this the fact that so many people buy trees from big box stores where professional advice is limited and either choose inappropraite varieties for the area, or place them in inappropriate locations in their yard, perhaps where they will cause problems when they get larger. I know I am facing that with some fruit trees in my yard, a Satsuma, a fig and another Satsuma growing too close together now that they have grown up and are 15-20 feet across each. They are nearly touching in places, and I am not sure what I will do long term, so now it is a matter of pruning stray longer branches and hoping they don’t get much bigger…

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I’ll be ripping out a cherry tree to make room for another tree in the orchard area. It is of unknown sweet cherry variety. It is unhealthy and poorly trained. I will tear it out with the front loader and burn it.

On a related note, I see people on Craigslist offering Japanese maples at astounding prices. Invariably they are sold without warranty and the buyer gets to dig it up.

These seem most prevalent in the Spring and Summer - the worst times to transplant.