Tips for moving house(garden)

[MightyGoldBear]

Whilst I know I can't take everything I do want to take as much as I can and cuttings of the things I can't.
9 years in a fully landscaped garden completely done by us is really hard to let go. Although the new owner is just getting into gardening and has assured me she will take care of it all. So that's better than someone who might of ripped it all out, especially for all the wildlife.

So anyone that's successfully moved plants I'm all ears for tips. Good bulb storage? Ways to maximise space but keep everything in tact.
I am hoping the weather cools 🤞🏻

Make sure that you tell the purchaser and the solicitor handling the sale that some specified items in the garden are not included, and that you will be taking them with you

When are you likely to be moving? A good time to transplant shrubs is in the autumn. Bulbs can probably be dug up now for storage as they will be dormant.

I have my spring bulbs in bulb baskets. If yours are also, they are easy enough to lift and take with you. If not in baskets, I'd just buy more TBH. Suttons currently have their £3 tulip/daffodil specials on. You need to check how many bulbs you get for £3 though because in a few months, morrisons, asda, lidl, aldi will also be selling them.

You might find that there are already bulbs at the new house. I can't help with moving larger pots/plants I'm afraid.

Ikea bags are useful (small and large). Dig them up as long as possible before you move, if you thought packing your house up was bad this is much more back breaking and time consuming. Not something you want to do the night before.
Put them in your own car/van if possible, movers won't necessarily be used to carefully moving plants and not breaking off too much.
Plant out asap, in a temporary bed if needed, it's easy to forget when your still thinking where to put your house stuff.

I moved in March/April so that was a bit easier heat wise. Moist towels and plastic bags with a bit of water inside?

You will jeopardise your sale doing this. I am also about to move and have a garden developed over over 25 years. Mostly by me. It will come over as mean and petty.
You might split a very few perennials in autumn but I wouldn’t go any further.

How far are you moving? If it's hundreds of miles then it will be tricky but if it's local then can you get a friend (or two) to make a mini-nursery for you, where they babysit your plants until you are ready for them.
You haven't mentioned the new house - are the conditions the same as they old place (aspect, soil, etc). Will things necessarily transplant? Do you want to replicate the garden or will you take the opportunity to do something different?
You mention cutttings and bulbs - are you also collecting seeds.
Label everything!

Don't try to take everything with you. Embrace the opportunities of a new site.

I would concentrate on the plants that would be difficult or prohibitively expensive to acquire again (I have lots of seed-grown rarities that I'd struggle to get seed for again and might struggle to germinate even if I could) and anything that has sentimental value because of how you originally acquired it. I would collect seeds and plant up a couple of cheap plastic troughs and a few 13L DIY buckets (holes drilled for drainage) and put them in the boot of the car and drive them to the new place. Bigger volume containers need less attention when you will probably have other things to worry about.

Take lots of photos to remember the garden you are leaving behind.

Time! You need plenty of time and you need to accept you can’t take everything and some cuttings will fail.

Typically I wouldn’t dig plants up unless you can divide without impacting the garden left behind.

When I was moving I planned well ahead so I could take cuttings at the right time of year. It was very important as some of my plants are “heritage” - they have been handed down by transplant and cuttings from my great-grandmother’s house - so I totally understand how sentimental you feel.

I took lots of cuttings and established them at home first - I gave away the least successful plants on Freecycle and kept the good ones to take to my new home.

Important ones - like roses and a type of lily my late mum loved - I took more cuttings than I thought I’d need so I could allow some to fail in the new garden.

Where possible collect seeds - put them in sealed envelopes and write the plant names on them.

Think about transport. Lots of pots ended up being transported in the boot and footwells of my car! It wasn’t easy.

At the end it was a bit of a scrabble and I did lift parts of some plants that could be easily divided and had gotten overgrown - a type of daisy, some sedums, some rockery plants.

The other thing I did was draw a map of my garden and label it with a key - then I wrote detailed notes about the garden through the seasons, what I knew about the soil, what bulbs were underground and when they’d show, the names of all the main shrubs and perennials, and how to care for some of the more unusual or difficult plants. It felt really good to hand off the garden to the incoming owners with a good chance of figuring out how to keep my totally gorgeous garden alive! I also thought they might appreciate knowing that the rhubarb patch was from original Victorian stock and totally delicious and tender when forced. In reality they probably didn’t care a hoot but it made me feel better!