I am preparing for a move from the Pacific Northwest to Charlotte, North Carolina in a few weeks, and am getting ready to load my trees into the back of a moving truck and drive eastbound and down. I am wondering what you all have done to safely pack your trees for transport for long or short journeys? Advice on foam and padding, or tie down ideas would be wonderful. I would appreciate any input and advice you have to share.
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I had a chest freezer that I had defrosted, but was still cool that I put mine in, since I was moving from Kansas to Texas in August. I stacked them well and filled with lightly crumpled newspaper. Since they were kept cool I was able to just put the freezer in the back of the moving truck. The drive was about 16 hours or so. Disclaimer: most of my trees were on the small side, so I fit all but one into the freezer - that one I kept in the cab of the truck with me so it didn’t scorch in the car I was towing - that had been a problem on previous moves.
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My last major move with trees was 25+ years ago, but here are things I picked up from the Asymmetry podcasts. Don’t cook or freeze your trees. Anchor them so they don’t bounce around. Those little bumps can move things a lot and big bumps will really bounce things around.
if I were moving a bunch of trees and pots that I don’t want damaged I would pad the pots with moving blankets and then anchor them to something so they don’t move around. This could be a individual boxes or it could be a sheet of plywood with anchor points that the trees and pots are tied to. The sheet of plywood has to be large enough and anchored well enough that it does not move around. Finally, remember to anchor the rest of the load so it does not fall on your trees.
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Don’t forget to secure all the other stuff around the trees that may move inadvertently and crash into the trees. The really valuable / can’t lose stuff goes in the car with me.
Josh, how did your move go? I’m contemplating one of my own and trying to figure out logistics. Whether to pare down my collection to what would fit in a cargo van or bite the bullet and rent a reefer truck. The bigger truck would be hell on gas, but I could take a near lifetime supply of pumice, scoria and akadama! Lol