Anonymous wrote:the key is the bigger the rootball the better.
but yeah at PP said, you could hire a few day labors dig one tree and drop it in a new hole. but for moving a tree I'd call a landscape company. it just hand labor. no real equipment needed other than shovels, digging bars and maybe a ball cart.
if it is indeed a Japanese maple, of that size, it could be work a couple thousands bucks. whereas moving it might set you back 400 bucks
I moved a tree (16' multi stem crepe) 18 miles did great for 4-5 years until we had a warm up u n early march which caused it to break buds and then a late freeze which killed it.
if you decide to move it. do it now or wait until fall.. you don't want to be moving a tree in the summer
if I was going to this job, I would root prune it now. and then move in the fall .
It really depends on what type of Japanese maple. Most are not that expensive. If it was an expensive one, it would not be 15’ tall. I bet it’s a crape myrtle of some type. They are like weeds and can be moved with little need of a root ball. A 5” caliber tree needs a root ball of 55-62” and will weight 3,000 pounds. If you hire people to do it. They will cut that root ball as small as they can because they have to move it. Just like you did with a 16” caliber tree.