When it's fully dormant - I would wait until late winter/very early Spring, so that it can grow away quickly rather than sitting in cold soil with the inevitably damaged roots. I have moved several of this sort of size without too many problems but do try to take the very largest root-ball that you can as well.

I wouldn't even contemplate it - I have doubts whether it would survive, as the rootball must be very large and the shrub established. You'd need a mini-digger! However if Ilex says he's done it.....

The general advice on moving deciduous shrubs is to do it when they're dormant but not when the ground is frozen.

They don't have particularly large root systems and tend to be surface rooting for the most part, so with care & time it's certainly possible Spitz.

I wouldn't attempt it either Spritz... I'd be scared of killing. Glad you have managed to do okay Ilex.

I had to move three that we planted in the garden early on when we found that the winter water table rose to turn that section of the ground into a bog. They were all around 10 years old, and all grafted, named varieties. None seemed to be any the worse for the move, and all would presumably have been killed if I hadn't moved them!

I must say that I made sure the new planting holes were ready and well prepared first so the plants were only out of the ground for a brief time.

Friends of ours have moved a lot of large-ish specimen Acers and Rhodos when they moved house & garden, with only one loss - they were using a small tractor to move the plants from garden to garden. There are plenty of nurseries who supply bare-root specimen-sized trees too - much larger than Redo's 7 footer in some cases - so it's not too risky so long as the plant is fully dormant.

Thats very interesting!! when we moved here the previous owner had planted three Acers in the borders, one raised! he was a Head Gardener before he retired, he said he had contemplated taking the Acers with him but on reading his books decided to leave them as it was very likely that he would lose them.

Now they have grown too large in my opinion for the positions they are in! along with a Winter flowering cherry there is only about 1metre spacings between three tree,s the canopies of two of the Acers are starting to intermingle, if I can get some manpower I might just get them moved.

If I really liked the plant, I wouldn't risk it either, unless there was absolutely no choice but to attempt it, so I'm with you, Spritz.