Question
A little bird gave me the gift of dropping a seed to a cottonwood tree on the side of my home.  I was very excited at first, until I found out that it was a cottonwood tree. It is approximately 10 feet tall, but still only a few inches in diameter.  The area that it is growing in is too narrow for it, so I need to transplant it to a different area.  My concern is that I will kill it.  It gets mostly shade all day, which in the Phoenix, Arizona area is rather important I presume.  The only area I have to transplant it to is where it will get afternoon sun, will it survive this?  If so, how do I go about transplanting it.  Thank you for any help.

Answer
Yes you can transplant the tree into the sun and it will do great! Transplanting a large tree is difficult and will require that a large root ball is dug (Go around the trunk out at least 18 inches from the stem and dig down all the way around the tree. Shape a half "ball" and dig this up with the roots intack. When you dig your new hole make it twice the size of the root ball and fill with potting soil, mulch and water. This is a large job and the root ball is heavy.