Best way to move plants?

[phissionkorps]

Looks like I'm moving to Ft. Worthless in almost exactly 1 month. It's about 5 and a half hours East of Lubbock, and I'll be driving.

What's the best way to move my collection? Unfortunately, I'm limited to putting my entire collection only in my car (2006 Chevy Malibu...good amt of space). I can't put them in the U-haul because it will be insanely hot in there, and my dad also isn't the best caretaker when it comes to plants (gave him a VFT, and he let the cat eat it....).

The best way I can think of space wise is unpotting everything, then preparing it as if I was going to ship it out. I.e., wet sphag around the roots wrapped in saran wrap, then entire plant in a bag. Then I'd put everything in boxes with an appropriate amount of padding. I won't disturb certain things like bical, bellii, my seedlings/cuttings, etc, but I can't take too many in their pot. Is this a good way, or is there something better I haven't thought of?

Comments from anyone who's had to move an entire collection greatly appreciated.

 

[maneatingmoo]

I had to move all of my plants, but there was only 3 plants. I put them in a box in their pots and they were tight up against eachother so they didn't tip over. They were in there for about a week and they were fine and still are.

 

[phissionkorps]

Yeah bringing everything potted isn't going to work for me...I have over 100 plants.
I'd probably need an F350 for that amount of square footage.

 

[mindmaze]

You can try acclimatizing some of the larger plants and see if you don't have to take them out of the pots. Other than that, placing plastic bags over the leaves might help. Worst case scenario would be to trim some of the larger plants and make some cuttings.

Joel

 

[jimscott]

I moved from Redaing, PA to Western NY with my collection, back in December of '05 Except for the buckets of minbogs, I had the myriad of pots in the largest cooler that Kmart had. Coolers are insulated, so in spite of the winter temps (~20 F) the plants fared well.

 

[WildBill]

Hey Phission -

Man, you guys GOTTA start a North Texas CP Society.

Mike and Andrea from the NECPS moved to Dallas recently, and I think there are a bunch of others out that way! Mike grows some amazing aldrovanda in Tropical fish tanks with the fish too.

Someone else, I can't remember if it was macamus or wmgorum said they visit Dallas a lot.

 

[phissionkorps]

It was wmgorum. I'll be in Ft. Worth, then there's those two from NECPS, VFTguy, Knuckles, CopcarFC, and I think a couple others on the ICPS website. Baylorguy is only a few hours away, and Mike Howlett, billylh and a few others are about 4 or 4.5 hrs away in Houston.

I don't even know how to get started though. Do you have any contact info for Mike and Andrea?

 

[WildBill]

Send me a PM and I'll give you their email and other contact info.

 

[Knuckles]

Hey Phission,
When I had to move my salty aquarium and many of my plants, I just bought a few plastic tupperware and storage containers. They were the rectangular ones that are maybe 6-8 inches high. I put newspaper around each pot so they wouldnt bang around and the stuffed them all in. The corals were in zip-locs mixed with the plants. It worked well, but most of my plants werent huge. I was able to stack the containers and put them all in the trunk.