Definitely worth the effort Doris. This is what I did and it worked very well...

First, make sure that the fact you will be taking plants with you is in the sale of the house if a sale is involved. I simply stated that some plants would be coming with me, but the gardens would more or less stay intact since I was taking divisions or repeats in the gardens.

I placed the plants I wanted in pots and plastic bags. Started two days before the move - made sure all else was done.

The day of the move, they were the last things on the moving van and so they were the first to come off when we arrived at our new home.

Planting took place two days after. During the wait, the plants were placed in shade and watered well.

Mind you, I only moved 45 minutes away from our former home, but I got to keep 'old friends'. They all transplanted well. This was late August.

Well worth the effort!!

If it is for a future move, maybe you can try propagating some of your favorite plants now (rooting cuttings, etc)? Young plants usually transplant much better than established ones.

Tiffy, you were very organized, that's alot of planning to do at a time when there's tons of packing.

AJ, Thats a good idea, Ill have to keep that in mind when the time comes. Hopefully things wont happen during the winter!!!!

Nothing is going to happen anytime soon, Im just thinking waywayway ahead of myself.

:)

I moved 1000 miles, and planned on taking all my WS babies, etc. Couldn't, because I could only take what would fit in my car. As ajpa suggested, I started some cuttings of larger things that were memorial plants, so I didn't want to lose them - my Dad's rose of sharon, my nephew's hydrangea, etc. Because my brother died a few months before I moved, I also had a couple of memorial plants I had received for him that I simply never planted in the ground - they came with me. I had enough time to work on this (over a year, it turned out in the end) to collect seeds from all my wintersown plants, so that accounted for 95+ different varieties (seeds pack easier!).

With the wintersown plants I had in containers from last year and this, I ultimately had to weed out - I gave away most, kept one special tomato plant, and the plants that had been difficult to germinate (beach plum - I only had one seedling after 5 years of trying - it's here in SC with me).

The issue will depend on how far you have to move - if you're like Tiffy, and you're only moving 45 minutes away, you can keep a lot more stuff and make multiple trips to and fro. But if you have to go far, make your priorities the stuff you can't otherwise replace - WS proved to me that in 5 years, I can grow most anything, so if it's not a memorial plant or a difficult germinator, I took seeds instead.

Good luck!