Live plant transport: nursery stock and trees

What live plant transport involves

Live plant transport means moving plants that have to arrive as healthy as they left: nursery stock, ornamentals, bedding plants, trees and fruit trees for planting. The goods breathe, lose water and suffer from heat, cold and knocks, and a badly run journey shows the moment the doors open.

It is a service for nurseries, ornamental growers, garden centres, landscapers, gardening firms and farms that plant. At Transcosur we do it within Spain and internationally, with refrigerated trailers that adjust the temperature to each plant and curtainsiders for large trees.

Which plants we move

• Nursery stock in pots or plug trays.
• Ornamental and bedding plants, on trolleys or pallets.
• Trees and fruit trees for planting.
• Olive trees and large trees with root balls, loaded by crane.

Each type needs something different. Bedding plants in flower are delicate and need a stable temperature; a root-balled olive tree is very heavy and what it needs is careful loading and good restraint.

Refrigerated trailers: each plant’s temperature

Most live plants travel in a refrigerated trailer. A fridge trailer does not just cool: it holds the set temperature for the whole journey, summer or winter. That is what a live plant needs: not to bake in a closed box in August or freeze on a mountain pass in January.

The temperature is not the same for every plant. It depends on the species, whether it is in flower or dormant, and how long the journey is. So before each load you tell us which plants they are and the temperature they need, and we set the unit to that.

Curtainsiders: large trees and olive trees

Olive trees and large root-balled trees do not fit in a refrigerated trailer or cannot be loaded from the rear. For them we use curtainsiders, which open along the side and allow loading by crane.

How an olive tree is loaded

The tree is slung by the root ball or the trunk, padded so the sling does not damage the bark, and the crane sets it down on the trailer. Trees are laid flat or at an angle depending on their size, with the root ball supported and well chocked.

How it travels

Trees are secured so they do not shift under braking or on bends, with the branches tied in so they do not snap. The closed curtain protects them from the wind, which dries the leaves out very quickly on the road.

How to prepare plants for the journey

Much of whether a plant arrives in good shape depends on how it leaves the nursery. In general, these help:

• Water before loading, without waterlogging.
• Group plants on trolleys, pallets or crates so they load and unload in one go.
• Secure pots and root balls so the soil does not spill.
• Protect the root balls of large trees with mesh or hessian.
• State the temperature each consignment must travel at.

If your plants are on pallets or trolleys, they are loaded just as in palletised freight: from the rear, with a pallet truck or forklift.

Plant passport

As general information: plants for planting that move within the European Union between professional operators usually travel with a plant passport, a label certifying that the plant meets plant health requirements. It is issued by the nursery or registered professional operator, not by the haulier. We carry it with the load and hand it over at destination with the transport documents.

What we need to know to quote

• Which plants and how they travel: pots, trolleys, pallets, root balls.
• Temperature they need to travel at.
• Quantity: number of trolleys, pallets or trees, and the size of any large trees.
• How they are loaded and unloaded: loading bay, forklift, crane.
• Origin, destination and dates.

Live plant transport in Spain and France

We transport plants within Spain and abroad, with France as our main market and regular routes in both directions. For plants that has a clear advantage: a well-planned journey is a short journey, and a short journey means a fresher plant on arrival. If your plants are going to or coming from France, see road freight between Spain and France.