Planting Huge Trees with a Crane!

All the Equipment Needed...

This post is about a job we did this fall planting some HUGE native trees with a crane. Above is the assemblage of equipment we used on the job. Our service van and dump trailer for tools and trash, my truck with flatbed trailer to haul the smaller trees to the planting locations, the nursery delivery semi with the plant material, the backhoe to dig and fill the holes, and the 30-ton crane used to set the big trees in the holes. It was a LOT of coordination but things went smoothly! I usually don’t recommend planting big native desert trees because the standard 24″ box size trees grow quickly and are stressed a lot less than the big trees. Unless you need “instant trees”, the 24′ box trees are a better deal. On this job “instant trees” were what was desired, so we planted two 54″ box and one 42″ box size trees as well as a dozen 24″ box. So, here are the photos of “instant trees”!

Jerome "Climbing" in a Big 54" Box Tree to Attach Lifting Straps

The Load Line on the 30-Ton Crane had to be Modified for the Weight!

8000 Pounds of Tree and Soil!

Look at the Size of that Root Ball!

Removing the Box!

I would like to be able to show you some pictures of the finished job, but I got so busy trying to get everything distributed around the community to its proper place, hooking up irrigation and back-filling, that I didn’t get any more pictures!