Large Acer Sale

We are looking to move house this year. When we bought the house 11 years ago, the owner left a note to say the tree in the garden was worth about £4,000. Last year we had the garden landscaped and the company doing the work said it could be worth £15,000 - £20,000 if bought from a Nursery.

So, as we are moving, i thought i would look into selling this tree if it is indeed worth quite a few thousand pounds.

I was just looking for some help.....firstly is it actually worth that amount and secondly how would i go about selling it?

I've attached a couple pics of it as it is just now. Leaves are just starting to appear for the year. It is a lovely tree!

Many thanks for your help.

 

Hi, it's a beautiful specimen.
I googled, they are for sale, costing thousands and coming in a very large pots. 500L (for example Specimen Japanese Acer Trees Buy UK. Mature Japanese Maples) .
I believe you'll need an excavator to dig it out with at least 1m3 of soil around root ball.
The demand is under question though...

 

Acers can go for silly money but unless you know the cultivar, you would have a hard time getting mega bucks for it. There are few people willing to risk thousands on transplanting a tree and it would cost thousands to do so. It could be something special and it's worth getting several opinions but from those two pictures it looks like a mature version of the common weeping acer palmatum dissectum "garnet". It's old and looks to have a trunk with good movement but you'd really have to find someone that loved it to pay a lot for it. The value for mature specimens is normally when they are already potted but acers can be moved reasonably successfully.

 

Be warned that you need to be clear to future buyers of the house that the Acer isn't included! Just in case you sell it, but the buyer wants to wait eg till autumn to take it. I have seen large trees sold for sizeable amounts, but they are normally growing in massive air pots on pallets.

 

Maybe I sound old fashioned but I feel trees, as living things don't seem to have a monetary value once established. That Acer looks very happy and healthy to me and however long you have been there for you too have taken care of it.

If it was me I would leave it for the next owners as to move it would create too much stress on the tree especially this time of the year.

Having said all that I intend to lift at least 2 sizeable plants when we come to move to take with us on purely sentimental grounds though. It'll cost £££ to lift but as the people who gave me them are no longer here it feels worthwhile.

 

It's too niche a market for this and in my opinion not worth the hassle if you are unsure of the variety. As mentioned to dig up requires time and money. It's highly unlikely someone would risk buying such a mature specimen dugged up. Those in the know also know that getting a tree that size to establish elsewhere is a big risk, and very unlikely to pay thousands to risk that.

 

I think what the landscaper meant was if you went to a supplier for a tree that size, it would cost you 15k+. That is not the same thing as being able to sell your "used" one for anything like that, and the chances of killing it by trying to do so are quite high. Dead it would be worth nothing to anyone, of course.

Large trees cost a lot to buy. Within gardens, these are fixtures and fittings really.

 

When we moved I dug up many of my azalea s. Lots of soil around the roots etc. Sadly only a third survived.
These I wanted to bring with me as they were all presents and meant a lot to me. But in hindsight I'd have tried to layer them several yrs before we moved .I think they would have survived a lot better.

 

Some years back I, with the agreement from the purchaser moved some substantial species and hybrid Rhododendron and Azaleas from my old house to my current property but they are very shallow rooted and were replanted within a couple of weeks of being moved. All survived. If I was going to pay thousands for a tree I would want to see it actively growing in its container, not just dug up and hope for the best. Personally I would just add it to a good selling point of your home and remove the pound signs from your eyeballs!

 

In a garden centre a few days ago and large pots of Phyllostachys Aurea were priced at over £100. I completely removed a clump covering an area about 8 feet by 3 feet a few years ago. It could have been worth a fortune.