Spading vs. Boxing

By Tim Widger, D&T Tree and Cactus, Inc.

If you and your crew are going to be moving trees often, purchasing a spade may be a wise investment for your park, school, or grounds. However, if you simply need to occasionally move a few trees, hiring an outside contractor may be a simpler and less expensive alternative. Photo: Big John Tree Transplanter Mfg., Inc.

As a Landscape Superintendent, tree removal and relocation is a problem that you must deal with as your grounds change and expand. Since you are always looking to stay under budget and still make sure all work is being done properly, taking a closer look at the two main methods of tree removal as well as the tools that go along with them can make your life easier and more efficient.

In the ever developing landscapes of colleges, municipalities, and amusement parks, where blueprints call for tree removal to make construction possible, it is vital that you be aware of the costs and benefits of both tree spading and boxing before you start digging.

Boxing

The boxing method of tree transplantation is a two-stage process, taking up to six weeks or longer for a single tree. Not only time consuming, it is also quite technical and calls for a great deal of man-hours in order to be done properly.

Tree spades come in a variety of sizes and are used in various ways in the landscaping industry ranging in price from as little as $21,000 for a 42?EUR??,,????'?? skid steer mounted spade, up to $110,000 for a 100?EUR??,,????'?? truck mounted spade. PhotoS: Big John Tree Transplanter Mfg., Inc.

Step One: Excavation

The first step in boxing is to excavate by hand the determined rootball, and size into a square. This takes several hours per tree and is very labor intensive as well as very invasive to the tree.

The fill is then tamped and paced using shovel handles or metal bars, and the tree is flooded with water and or fertilized to help it through the stress of transplantation. The tree will then sit for a minimum of four to six weeks to recover from stage one and to let the soil in the box become cohesive.

Stage Two: Bottoming

After being watered and nursed back to health, the second stage, ?EUR??,,????'??bottoming?EUR??,,????'?? must be performed. To do this, lumber is framed across the top of the box before being nailed to the trunk of the tree and to the box panels. This framing gives support to the trunk, as the box is then tipped on one side in order to cut the taproots at the bottom of the tree.

Finally, six weeks after starting, the tree is ready to be moved and placed back in the earth. To do this, chains and front-end loaders transport the box, and cranes and forklifts are utilized to lower the rootball into place. This method has been used for years and while it works very well, it is obviously time consuming and labor intensive.

After the blades are inserted to their fullest depth, stabilizers are lowered and the tree is extracted from the ground and tilted into a horizontal position. The tree is now ready to be transported.

Spading

In the spading method of tree transplanting, 90 percent of the manual labor portion has been eliminated. In minutes, the blades of a spade machine perform the work that would take a team of men hours by hand digging. As far as the root systems go, spading is the least invasive method of transplanting.

The spade will encapsulate 95 percent of the rootball of the tree, and only a few lateral roots are cut below grade. These roots are cut cleanly, however, creating less stress on the tree. The trees are then transported to their new location and planted back into the ground. The rootball does not spend a number of weeks outside its natural environment in a wooden box, and therefore has a better chance of survival.

Conclusion

Using the boxing method, an 8-inch caliper tree would be placed into a 48-inch box. The tree?EUR??,,????'???s rootball would have to be pruned and excavated to 45-inches to comfortably accommodate the box being built around it, while leaving an inch or two for backfill. A tree spade, however, would transplant the same size tree using a 90-inch spade, allowing for a rootball twice as large and with little or no roots compromised. Since spading is faster, more efficient and most importantly, easier on the trees than boxing, it is becoming a widely used method for tree transplantation.

Not all of you need to run out and purchase two to three spades to have around the garage. Depending on how often you move and transplant trees on the landscape you maintain, purchasing a tree spade for your crew may or may not be necessary. Often, for bigger jobs, it may be more prudent to hire a landscape contractor, who already has the equipment. However, if you foresee many tree projects in the future, it may not be a bad idea to have a spade on hand.

Here, the blades of the tree spade are about to be inserted into the ground. The blades are hydraulically inserted one at a time. Photo: Big John Tree Transplanter Mfg., Inc.

When choosing a tree spade, there are a number of options to consider such as spade width, and the type of spade mount. Mainly, spades are manufactured for mounting on the back of trucks, skid-loaders, and trailers.