Handling Specimen Trees on Site

Specimen trees carry the largest single-item price tag on most planting jobs, and they are most often damaged in the last hundred feet — coming off the truck and going into the hole. These notes come from years of loading contractor trucks at our yard and from our own installation crews.

Know the weights before the truck arrives

A two-man crew handles up to about 65 gallons with a ball cart on firm ground. Beyond that, plan equipment: skid steer with forks or a boom attachment, mini excavator with a rated lifting eye, or a knuckle-boom truck. Match the machine to the heaviest tree plus rigging, and confirm gate widths and overhead clearance during the estimate, not on delivery morning.

Rigging rules that save trees

• Lift by the ball, never the trunk. A trunk choker crushes cambium and the damage shows up two years later as dieback on that side.
• If you must steady by the trunk, pad it and use a wide strap under light tension only.
• Use rated nylon slings around the root ball or through container drain handles — never chain against bark.
• Tip-and-roll works for containers on smooth ground: lay the tree over onto the canopy side padded with a moving blanket, roll the pot, walk it up.
• Keep the canopy tied with soft rope during transport and moving; branches snapped at the collar do not regrow.
• Never leave a specimen standing loose overnight — lay it down or heel it in with mulch against wind.

The hole: wide, not deep

In our clay, dig the hole two to three times the ball width and no deeper than the ball height — measure the actual ball, since nursery soil lines vary. Set the root flare 1 to 2 inches above finish grade; large balls settle in clay, and a specimen planted flush usually ends up buried. Scarify glazed hole walls with the excavator teeth or a mattock so roots can penetrate. Backfill with the native soil that came out of the hole, broken up, with no bagged amendments in the backfill — amended pockets in clay act like a bathtub and keep roots circling.

1. Set the tree, check the flare height with a straightedge across the hole, and rotate the best face toward the primary view before cutting any rigging.
2. On B&B material, cut and remove wire basket loops and burlap from the top third of the ball once the tree is set. Synthetic twine comes off entirely — it never rots.
3. Backfill in lifts, watering each lift to settle. Do not stomp clay backfill into a compacted collar.
4. Build a 4-inch watering ring at the ball edge and fill it slowly twice.
5. Mulch 2 to 3 inches, off the trunk, and install guying per the staking guide if the site is exposed.

Budget real time: a 200-gallon tree, done right, is a half-day for a three-man crew with equipment, from truck to mulch. The hours are cheaper than the tree.