Labor to plant 21 five gallon leyland cypress

[sgbotsford]

I'm impressed. 14 man days for 3000 plants is fast. That's 200+ plants per day.

I don't know if I could MOVE 10,000 gallons of pot to a site in 3.5 days. And the thought of digging 3000 holes with a one man auger makes my back hurt.

So how much did you charge per plant? Did you provide, or did they? Were they already on site?. What was your soil like? Locations already marked? Any soil treatment needed? Just planting, or weed barrier & mulch too? Multiple species?

Not being critical, just curious.

You can bid on the basis of making it cheap enough to get the contract.
You can persuade people that you know what you are doing, and so they should take the higher price, in terms of higher expected survivability.

[sgbotsford]

@muddywater: The cost of the kind of stuff I'm planting doesn't vary much by pot size. EvI'm growing the stuff. Some things will be 20% over becuase the liners were more expensive. Some things under because they really haven't grown into that potsize yet. But a 10 foot swedish aspen = 10 foot birch = 8 foot spruce = 9 foot pine = 10 foot weeping willow. All come in a #10 grow bag. All cost $90. All cost $90 to plant. It makes it easy for the people who come out to look. "See that bag? $90. Everywhere. You think it too small? Buy somewhere else. Want a lot of them? We'll talk. " Another $90 gets it installed.

Actual installations vary too much. How far is it? How many loads? Can I combine loads? What's the soil like? Is there water on site. Faster to highball the estimate to cover the crap, and make money when it's not as bad as it could be.


Mind you my planting includes 2 year warranty, 2 years fertilizer, weed barrier, and mulch.

I deliberately bid high my planting because I'm running a farm. I grow trees. I only plant trees for clients in order to sell trees, and that only when I'm not busy. I'm not really set up for planting. No bobcat. Only a groundhog auger. And the planting cost = material cost, when I'm providing the material makes it easy.

Just got a call for a guy who wants a privacy screen on his back fence. 10 foot birch alternating with aspen. It's fall. Everyone else he's talked to is talking 300-400 bucks per tree. I quoted 225/tree installed, minimum 6 trees. Or 110 per tree delivered. Or 90/tree he picks up. I also told him if he takes option 2, and has a hole ready, I'll help him plant one to show him how it's done.


Am I out to lunch?

[muddywater]

Originally Posted by sgbotsford

I'm impressed. 14 man days for 3000 plants is fast. That's 200+ plants per day.

I don't know if I could MOVE 10,000 gallons of pot to a site in 3.5 days. And the thought of digging 3000 holes with a one man auger makes my back hurt.

So how much did you charge per plant? Did you provide, or did they? Were they already on site?. What was your soil like? Locations already marked? Any soil treatment needed? Just planting, or weed barrier & mulch too? Multiple species?

Not being critical, just curious.

You can bid on the basis of making it cheap enough to get the contract.
You can persuade people that you know what you are doing, and so they should take the higher price, in terms of higher expected survivability.

They provided the plants. We had to unload them though. It took half a day to unload them, but we staged them so we could install faster. It was on a hill as you can see in the photo. And it was fill dirt with no ammendments.

I am the favored contractor for this client. They told me I could have the job if I matched a certain price per plant of another contractor. There is 140 yards of mulch but that is a separate price.

The little one man auger really saved hundreds of man hours.

[Patriot Services]

We use augers too, up to 15 gal. Then its hand dig, but still doesn't take that long on our soft soil.
The laughable part is when someone thinks the TYPE of plant has any bearing on the cost of install. I've installed some very pricey exotics that I would have lost the job if I bid twice the plant cost.
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So where is Lizzie these days? Oh well at least he is archived for future generations to read.

[muddywater]

Yeah we have a 36" bit that will fit just about any large plant. Then i have a special bit for our dingos that is 12" at the bottom, then 24" at the top. So we can plant 3 gallon and 15 gallon/ small bnb with the same auger. Really efficient. Then when we have thousands to plant we use the echo auger bc it is so maneuverable.
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[italianstallion69]

@muddywater- what kind of one man powerhead are you using?

I use 2 43cc ardisams with 8" and 12" bits and one groundhog hd99 hydraulic with a 18"

the ardisams suck to start, takes ~5 mins every morning to get em going, even had my engine guy look at he said its fine.

are the echos any better (for 2x the price?)

like you- i always put 2 guys on a one man auger. very fast! and manueverable.

[muddywater]

Originally Posted by italianstallion69

@muddywater- what kind of one man powerhead are you using?

I use 2 43cc ardisams with 8" and 12" bits and one groundhog hd99 hydraulic with a 18"

the ardisams suck to start, takes ~5 mins every morning to get em going, even had my engine guy look at he said its fine.

are the echos any better (for 2x the price?)

like you- i always put 2 guys on a one man auger. very fast! and manueverable.

Damn those ardisams are cheap. I could have bought two for the price of my echo. How are the quality of those? I saw something similar on ebay, but i worried if they would even make it to 3000 holes. And then i cant get parts or have anyone to work on them. The echo just barely has adaquate power. It probably needs a seal at the shaft after this job. We had to put grease in it each morning. I think i should have gotten the stihl model, it might be a little tougher.

[italianstallion69]

the ardisams are cheap but very powerful!

used them all summer long, easily over 1000 plants per auger and the only repair so far was getting a new pull starter put on the one powerhead.

it is extremely hard to get auger bits off the powerhead so we just switch powerheads- 8" for 1-2 gals and 12" for 3"+ gals. also ditch the bolt for a tractor hitch pin/lock ring setup.

you can get them $200 at tractor supply!

2 for the price of 1 echo!

[italianstallion69]

how do you like the dingo and auger? that is one thing I do not have. we just use a mini ex to dig for tree holes. I compared costs and thought a mini ex was more versatile, but 2 of my guys keep asking for a dingo auger setup.

I just worry being `2,000 lbs it wont be manueverable into the sometimes tight spaces landscape architects cram our plants.