How long does it take to plant a tree...

[Sylvan]

...or 250?

We need to plant several hundred trees. Being tight I'm looking to buy them in sufficient quantities to take advantage of the volume discounts and to spend enough to get free p&p. We need some sundries as well so I could go for 250 trees and ALL the other bits and pieces in the first order, meaning the next one would have to be all trees, or I could get 350 and some of the other stuff, leaving only 500 for next time (or 450 and 400...)

It all depends on how many man hours they would take to plant (or whether we could heel them in for a few weeks, in the garden at home, in big bundles, without having to separate them - since we wouldn't have the space to heel them in separately).

These man hours are for a man in his 60s by the way. They tend to be shorter than average man hours (though still longer than teenager hours )

[zazen999]

Are they going to be bare root and quite small? I'd probably buy them small enough to be able to use a bulb planter to make the holes.

[bazzaboy]

Wow….! So best part of a 1000 trees to plant? Over what sort of area? Is this a hedge, a forest, an orchard or what? If anything larger than ZZ is suggesting I think you’re going to need quite a lot of help (and would offer but I think you’re probably too far away….). The first thing I’d do is re-read the RHS note on planting trees as it’s very good (and had changed recently particularly with regard to artificial feeding)…..
Trees and shrubs: planting / Royal Horticultural Society

Time per tree is going to depend on several factors not yet specified, e.g.:
Type of tree?
Bareroot?
Intended purpose?
Weather?
Distance to chosen nursery?
Will they need staking?
Will they need protection (e.g. against rabbits)?
Arrangements for watering in early days?
Machinery available? Manpower available?
Sounds a great project but don’t let “being tight” end up costing you more because of unforeseen complications (e.g. a sudden foot of snow!)
Interested to hear more. bb.

[Potstubsdustbins]

Watched a program the other week about a tree planting session think it was on country file. Wanting straight lines they marked out with thick twine. Then with a bag of small saplings and a spade each they walked down the line and just cut a T shape with the upright cut last. This was levered with the spade to form a wide slot, the sapling was placed in that slot and the turf heeled back over the roots. It literally took just a couple of minutes each but I am sure they had had a practice first.

Colin

[Sylvan]

Yup, bare root. Mostly 40-60cm, with a couple of hundred 60-90 cm. We're waiting for delivery of a 4" diameter auger. Thought we'd take out a spade's width of turf for each one and then we can go back and take out more when we have time, without risking the edge of the spade hitting the trees.

He says the ground is quite compacted, but the samples he brought me appear to be a sandy loam so it shouldn't be too hard.

[Sylvan]

So they didn't bother removing any turf Colin? That sounds encouraging. Should cut down on the time needed

We wondered about just making a slit, the way you do for hedging, but weren't sure whether they would establish as well - but if the professionals are doing it...

He can do the hard work and I'll just pop 'em in

[veggiechicken]

Try this Sylvan Planting - Grow a tree with BTCV

[Potstubsdustbins]

No Sylvan they did not seem to remove anything, just made a hole as described above and pushed everything back down. They were planting at the National Forest so I presume they wre under the eye of an expert.

Don't know what ground prep had been done before hand though remember this was tele. The saplings appeared to be about 300mm to 500mm long.

Colin

[solway cropper]

When I was a lad I worked in forestry for a few years and using the same technique as described by PTD I could manage 400-600 a day, depending on ground conditions. The experienced planters could get 1000 or more in a day and this was usually on fairly marginal land.

We were mainly planting 2 year old conifer seedlings in straight lines using sighting sticks. With amenity planting of slightly bigger hardwood trees you'd probably be down to a couple of hundred in a day.

No ground prep is required other than skimming the turf with the spade edge but they do need weeding for the first few years till they get established. That just involves slashing the grass growth with a sickle, being careful not to decapitate the young tree.

[Sylvan]

Wow….! So best part of a 1000 trees to plant? Over what sort of area? Is this a hedge, a forest, an orchard or what? If anything larger than ZZ is suggesting I think you’re going to need quite a lot of help (and would offer but I think you’re probably too far away….). The first thing I’d do is re-read the RHS note on planting trees as it’s very good (and had changed recently particularly with regard to artificial feeding)…..
Trees and shrubs: planting / Royal Horticultural Society

Time per tree is going to depend on several factors not yet specified, e.g.:
Type of tree?
Bareroot?
Intended purpose?
Weather?
Distance to chosen nursery?
Will they need staking?
Will they need protection (e.g. against rabbits)?
Arrangements for watering in early days?
Machinery available? Manpower available?
Sounds a great project but don’t let “being tight” end up costing you more because of unforeseen complications (e.g. a sudden foot of snow!)
Interested to hear more. bb.

You're right - MUCH too far away - but thanks for the thought

To start with:
250 hazel, 100 wild cherry, 100 crab apple, 100 wild pear, 100 field maple - in a block about 200 foot long;
100 hawthorn and 100 blackthorn - along a field boundary (we'll fill in other stuff between them later);
100 silver birch to plant in a long line parallel with the track

We have a few alders, willow and amelanchier for the boggy bit, but we've put them in the garden for the moment (hence the lack of room for heeling in the others)

All bareroot.

Coppice. 6-8 year rotation (depending on how well they grow).

Weather. Hmm It's in the highlands and fairly exposed but there are vast numbers of mature trees in the area and they all grow vertically (rather than almost horizontally the way they do round here). It's only about 80m high and a predominantly south facing slope.

Hundreds of miles - they'll be coming by post initially and then taking a long drive with us (doubtless shouting "Are we nearly there yet?" at frequent intervals).

We're not intending to stake most of them and there are no wabbits but the neighbours tell us there are deer. We will have 250 spiral guards (and 250 stakes to hold them up) but I've established that the protection actually costs almost as much as the trees so we've decided to save them for the more expensive trees - such as the orchard.

Watering? What's that?

Machinery: Hmm... an auger, spades, forks, an azada, wheelbarrows... Manpower: One ageing male and one virtual basket case.

We had a sudden foot of snow in June one year...

As long as we don't get

[veggiechicken]

It sounds wonderful Sylvan. Woodland creation - love it! Hope all goes well for you

[Sylvan]

Ooh, all these luvverly links to follow up. May be another all-nighter
Thanks guys'n'gals xxx

The saplings appeared to be about 300mm to 500mm long.

Colin

What's that in old money?
(It's OK, just joking - I'm conversant with the conversion - decimalisation happened the year I went to big skool and confused the teachers no end )

[Sylvan]

Why do some of the posts not have like buttons?

Solway cropper your initialising makes Colin sound like a disorder (I'll have an "S" please Carol)

I'm assuming you mean an 8 hour day? He'd probably better stick to about half that ('cos cramp's no fun in an extremely small camper ) and I'll be lucky if I manage a couple of hours... so that means we should be able to plant about 100 a day. That doesn't sound too bad. A bottle of gas ought to last us for about a week if the temperature doesn't suddenly plummet...

[binley100]

A hole borer may be useful ......like a huge corkscrew , removes a plug of soil . We used one at the lottie for various things like posts, trees etc.

[Sylvan]

I'm not very good at drawing


Eventually there'll be willows along the north, west and east boundaries and in the boggy bit down by the wood (which, I've just realised, isn't shown , but it borders the south-eastern boundary) and an orchard and vegetables/soft fruit in the field above the house.