Moving home / greenhouse

[EdMcKenna]

I am planning moving to a new house and more particularly a new and smaller greenhouse.
Does anyone have any tips from experience they can offer? I'm aware of this being so near to the end of the growing season.
Also any advice on transportation of my collection would be appreciated. I'll be moving over a period of time so at the moment I'm thinking gradually by crate in the back of my car but eventually I'm going to need a van for the tall ones.

[StevenT]

Does the smaller greenhouse mean that you need to reduce the number of plants you have? If so, then I'd start to decide now which ones you will have sell/give away etc. Work out the area you will have in the new greenhouse and mark that out in your current greenhouse. Move your plants around so that the ones you want to keep are in the area equivalent to the new greenhouse. Selecting which plants to dispose of is likely to be hard - so start now. And then start disposing of them very soon. You will have enough to do when the time to move comes.

The end of the growing season will help as you can stop watering before the move - dry plants are less heavy.

Start to gather boxes tall enough to protect your plants during transit. If you can get crates that stack, then so much the better. If you will be transporting plants inside the car, then old blankets/towels etc spread over car seats will help protect them.

Crumpled newspaper or similar is good for packing around pots. If you have any ceramic/terracotta pots, then put packing between them to cushion them so as to avoid breakage in transit.

To move a tall Cereoid plant by car, fasten it to a padded plank. Then you can lower it to the horizontal and slide it into the car.

Good luck!

[Chris L]

If you are transporting trays on the back seats..... use the seatbelts. I once nearly had a pile of 150 plants, pots, soil and labels in the footwells due to having to do an emergency stop.

I didn't because of said seatbelts.

[el48tel]

Yup
Been there 'n done that and then with Flowers in bouquets when I worked for a florist. Surprising how far a few litres of water will go. Compost seems to travel further.

[juster]

Yes I always use the seatbelts if moving plants on the back seat of the car. Ed another thing to think about is whether you can restart a large plant into a smaller pot by rooting offsets or cuttings. This can save a lot of space, without getting rid of the plant altogether. Good luck!

[Chris43]

I moved house nearly 7 years ago, and had about 1800 plants to move. Not many were tall plants, so I bought 80 stacking crates and over the few months between agreeing to buy and completion, I gradually filled the crates. I took out all the tall ones and moved them to my daughter's garage, a journey of about 20 miles, in a couple of trips. The few tall plants were staked, as I needed the rear space so couldn't really use the rear seat belts. This was December, so cool but that year not freezing.
I foud it an amusing process of gaining quotes from removal companies, when after assessing the house contents, I took them out to the greenhouse. Some just said no, but one said that if I could stand guard as they moved the crates then OK, but at my own risk. Fortunately they were the ones that my wife preferred, and when the quaotes came in they were next to cheapest.
On the day of picking up contents and plants I just stood by as crate after crate was stacked in one of the vans. The towers of crates were tied into the sides of the van, and the next day they arrived and stacked the crates in the garage of the new house. I had no greenhouse into which they could go, but this was built by end of March, and the plants moved to the new ghouse.
Remember that crates come in several heights, I didn't get that right, and there were a few losses due to compression injuries.
Once all settled I kept a dozen crates and sold the rest, which easily coered the initial purchase.
Good luck!

[Patrick]

Well what I would do differently from my last move is I would unpot everything and pack the plants into boxes with lots of paper, but I was travelling from England to Portugal. By the time I got the trailer load of plants to our new house I had to repot a lot of them anyway and throw out others. Crates in the car is fine for a small number and short distances. I also had a lot of small plants in small pots which is maybe more difficult than bigger plants (within reason)

[EdMcKenna]

Thanks for the replies and advice, the car will only be suitable for some so I'll end up getting a van for the tallest cacti. My wife has some trees and shrubs that will need moving so one with a tail lift I suppose.
Hopefully casualties will be few
It's still a daunting prospect but I'll not be leaving anything behind.
The smaller greenhouse means I'll have to stack plants vertically which will be a change and all my under bench essentials will have to go into an outdoor storage bunker.