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Transplanting:
Part 1
“A Little History”
The following article is submitted by Tim Widger of D & T
Tree & Cactus of Marana, Arizona in response to inquiries by
Bob Hartman of BIG JOHN Tree Transplanter Mfg., Inc.
Spading method vs. boxing method, back around 1982 I was
involved in a very large Saguaro Cactus transplanting job in
Tucson that was to become a famous resort and golf course.
It was standard practice back then for the majority of
saguaros and other protected cacti to be relocated out of
the path of development, and to be used in the final
landscape of the project. This practice was given the name
Native Plant Salvage. Back then no one ever gave any thought
to relocation of the trees or shrubs. It was assumed that
they couldn’t be relocated because a few people had tried to
“bare root” them like we did the saguaro cactus and other
cacti. Of course the trees are a whole different kind of
plant and they would die, usually within 48 hours.
So we were moving right along with the saguaro salvage and
one day some fellows show up on site and start hand digging
around some mesquite trees. I asked them what they were
doing and they explained to me that they were from
California and they knew of a way to move these desert trees
and it was called “tree boxing”. Little did I know at that
time an entire industry was being born in the Tucson area.
Tree salvage became the norm and today there is a law in
Arizona and it’s known as the Native Plant Preservation
Ordinance. It wasn’t long before I realized that to stay
competitive I would have to combine this tree boxing with my
saguaro moving operations. So we learned this boxing method
from some others in the boxing industry and we set out to
box trees. We purchased lumber, nails, hammers, metal
banding, trailers, and of course picks, shovels, backhoes,
loaders, and rented cranes. What a nightmare. The amount of
manual labor and time and materials required to transplant
these trees hardly seemed worth it. We boxed trees for a lot
of years and it seemed like no matter how much money came
in, the same amount always went right back out to keep this
logistical nightmare rolling, I never seemed to get ahead.
One day a friend of mine who is a contractor called me and
asked if I could do a small transplanting job on a utility
joint trench area, this job was extremely small but had to
be completed due to the Native Plant ordinance. There were
several small cacti, a few saguaros and one Whitethorn
Acacia tree. Well I couldn’t see dragging out all the
hardware to box one tree, but yet it had to be done to
satisfy the ordinance. Meanwhile another friend of mine who
was a landscape contractor had purchased a used 80” tree
spade somewhere in the Kansas City area. He brought it back
to Tucson to see if this could simplify this tree moving
thing. I called him and asked if he could move this one
small tree for me and we scheduled a time to meet. Fifteen
minutes later this tree was transplanted and I was in awe.
This machine just transplanted the tree in fifteen minutes.
This would have taken us four to six weeks to transplant
using the box method. The four to six weeks is because in
the boxing method there are two stages in the process with a
minimum of four weeks in between the stages, more on the
process later in the story.
I knew right then and there that the future in transplanting
was by spade method. I also felt a relief like the weight of
the world had been lifted off my shoulders. No more rented
cranes, picks, axes, metal banding, box panels, nails,
hammers, etc. I knew right then and there that my life was
going to become easier, and more importantly more
profitable. I purchased by first Big John Tree Spade, a used
90” spade and began using it to relocate trees on my jobs.
That was 10 years ago, we don’t have that old spade anymore
but what we do have now is a fleet of brand new Big John
Tree Spades, including a 100”, 90”, 80”, 65” and 55” spades.
The reason we are now able to keep about a million dollars
worth of new spades around is that we now make a lot of
money moving trees.
Transplanting:
Part 2
Methodology
Spading: In the spading method of tree transplanting 90% of
the manual labor portion has been eliminated. The blades of
this machine in mere minutes perform the work that would
take men hours of hand digging, as far as the root systems
go the spading is the least invasive method of
transplanting. The spade will encapsulate 95% of the
rootball of the tree; only a few lateral roots are cut below
grade and cut cleanly by the blade creating less stress on
the tree. The trees are then transported to their new
location and planted back into the ground, in the ground is
the natural environment for the rootball not trapped inside
wooden panels. Spading is very fast, efficient and most
importantly easier on the trees.
Boxing: Now onto the subject of boxing. The boxing method of
tree transplantation is as I referred to earlier in the
story a two stage process, taking up to six weeks or longer
for each tree. In boxing the first step is to excavate by
hand the determined rootball size in to a square, this takes
several hours per tree and is very labor intensive as well
as very invasive to the trees rootball. During the
excavation of the rootball many roots are pruned in order to
accommodate the four box panels that are to be built around
the rootball, remember that because of the high cost of
labor and materials for this method they use the smallest
box possible to let the tree survive the process, this means
lots of the root pruning to size the rootball. A quick
example of this would be that most companies would put as
large as an 8” caliper tree into a 48” box. To get it into a
48” box the rootball would have to be pruned and excavated
to 45” to comfortably accommodate the 48” box being built
around it and leaving an inch or two for backfilling and
packing. This tree would be spade transplanted using a 90”
spade thus 100% larger rootball for the same tree and
encapsulating 95% of the rootball meaning little or no roots
being compromised. Remember this is the first of two stages.
Once excavated it’s time to nail the four panels together to
hold them in place, next metal banding is cut to go around
the panels and a banding tensioner tool pulls the metal
bands tight, next is to put metal clamps on the bands to
hold them in place, now it’s time to “level” the box and
begin backfilling, the couple of extra inches inside with
clean fill.
This fill is then tamped and packed using shovel handles or
metal bars. This tree is then flooded with water and/or
fertilized to help it through the stress of being root
pruned and boxed. The tree will then sit right there for a
minimum of four weeks, usually more like six weeks to
recover from stage I and to let the soil in the box start to
become cohesive. The first stage is referred to as “side
boxing”. After four to six weeks of being watered and nursed
back to health, it’s time for stage II, “bottoming”. In
bottoming you must first build some lumber framing across
the top of the box and nail it to the trunk of the tree and
to the box panels. This supports the trunk of the tree to
the box because now you have to “tip” the box over to one
side so you can cut the tap roots of the tree to allow you
to nail and band the bottom onto the box, during this
process you almost always lose soil from the bottom of the
rootball, meaning once all of this is done and “tip” the
tree back up straight you can start cutting a hole in the
side of the box to backfill dirt into the airspace left by
the lost soil from the bottom of the rootball. After packing
the soil it’s time to nail a patch onto the side of the box.
Now the tree is stressing from the cutting of the tap roots
and again be watered and left in place. We are now six weeks
minimum into moving the first tree and it hasn’t even left
the hole it was excavated in. Now it’s time to start moving
the trees, there are several methods to accomplish this
including chains and a front end loader, cranes, forklifts,
etc. By the time the tree boxer’s first tree came out of the
hole I have moved hundreds of trees already, and am probably
two or three jobs down the road. Does the tree boxing work?
Yes it does, and it was necessary before the invention of
the tree spade. I personally boxed and moved ten thousand
trees with this method. Would I ever consider moving them
this way again? No way, not in a million years.
The bottom line here is that the spading method is faster,
cheaper and above all much easier on the trees. I still see
companies boxing trees to this day and I can’t imagine why
someone would put themselves or the trees through all the
suffering when there is a much better way.
For information regarding this article or questions about
boxing vs. spading, please call Tim Widger at D&T Tree and
Cactus, Inc. (502)603-3355 or visit us at 8080 W. Tangerine
Road, Marana, AZ 85653.
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