Back to Barlows...Post hole digger for B3200

[JOHNTHOMAS]

54 trees planted yesterday. Wife (former waterer, plant specialist and then garden center manager at Lowe's) and I are wore out. Sure my brother next door, Certified Master Gardener was cringing while I dug the holes with the post hole digger and didn't do it right with hugh hole 3 times bigger and deeper than tree like I always tell people to do and sometimes have done myself when planting 1 tree. The 7 I give my son in law will probably be planted correctly since he has a degree in landscaping or something like that. He'll also only be planting 7 instead of 54. Books and real gardeners do say to do it different than I usually practise. I know you professional landscapers will tell me I did it wrong but I usually get tired when planting 2 or 3 trees and end up digging a hole, throwing in tree and pushing in dirt and then stepping all around it. Rarely had a tree not do well. I dug holes, wife pulled roots apart and set trees and I brought some good topsoil and dumped around a few of them. Lowe's has the bring it back in a year and get your money back guarantee. Course that doesn't address the issue of not doing good but just staying alive. I've also had some die or don't do good after doing it "right" and wrong.
Good tip on using backhoe instead of posthole digger. I would prefer using a backhoe also and Barlows only wanted $4400 more for a backhoe than the posthole digger and I did consider it!! No backhoe just for planting my 54 trees.
Thanks to those that answered my question of storing the post hole digger. I tried searches and couldn't find anything on post hole diggers. Is there another terminology that it will be under?

 

[Tom_H]

I have a question for someone in the know...

There is a botanical garden here in CA with rows Redwood Trees... I commented that they must have liked the first plantings so much that they decided to plant more.

The stunted or small trees 25' tall were planted years before the super lush and healthy trees.

It was explained the young healthy trees were planted by a Japanese Gardner and part of his preparation was digging down 7' and back filling and tamping with his own planting mix consisting of lots of Fish Heads and other things... apparently in Japan it is common to plant with fish parts.

Wouldn't having such a deep hole prevent the young trees from surpassing the older ones?

Curt,

Redwoods need a constant supply of both water and air to their root system. They have no tap root, however the root system is very extensive. The roots of adjacent trees grow together to create intricate water sharing systems. More than the nutrients, the physical texture of the soil can make a difference. In the valley. redwoods planted in clay are planted on mounds or berms so that the water drains away and allows the roots to breathe, otherwise they could drown from lack of air to the roots. Nevertheless, they need drip watering virtually every day to survive in this clay. The soil prepared by that gardener likely had a high degree of organic matter in it; this allows for space between soil particles and the organic matter can hold water like little sponge packets, while the spaces between particles allows fresh air to be present. The 7' depth of the prepared soil also allows for water retention and the ability for water to wick back up to the roots.

Nevertheless, I would guess that the difference in size and age had more to do with genetics than anything. I planted a hundred or so seedlings (grown from seed) purchased from the CA Dept. of Forestry. Each is genetically unique (egg and polen produced by meiosis followed by sexual reproduction through pollenation) and the variation in size, shape, coloration, etc. is astounding. They look like ten different species of conifers. At the same time, I also bought several Aptos Blue cultivars. A cultivar is a "cultivated variety" which is created through selective breeding, and then propogated asexually through cloned cuttings. Every tree is grown by taking a small cutting, coating the cut end with rooting harmone, then culturing in good soil with perfect watering. A great number of the redwoods that you see outside their native range are Aptos Blues. They grow much more rapidly than seedlings or other cultivars. They are more drought tolerant, disease tolerant, straighter, and are an all around genetically superior tree. Every single one of them is a cloned descendant of one single tree in Aptos, CA on the coast, not far from you. The Aptos Blues that I planted 10 years ago are two to three times the height and five to ten times the mass of all the seedlings that came from the forestry dept. The "blue" comes from the fact that the needles are a much deeper green than other redwoods (more of the primary color blue and less yellow makes a deeper green in the chlorophyl pigments).

Aptos Blue is an amazing tree. I wish I had paid the extra money and planted only this cultivar. The redwood seedlings from the forestry dept., I wish I never had planted.


Sorry for not replying sooner; the internet connection to our area was cut (apparently by someone with a backhoe who didn't do a utility check first) while I was trying to reply yesterday.

 

[ChuckinNH]

Try these links:
http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/build-yourself/142561-3pt-auger-stand.html

http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/customization/54029-post-hole-digger-stand.html

http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/attachments/79999-yet-another-post-hole-digger.html

http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/attachments/76350-stand-store-my-post-hole.html

That ought to give you some ideas.

 

[ultrarunner]

Thanks Tom_H... thoughtful and thorough as always!

 

[JOHNTHOMAS]

Try these links:
http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/build-yourself/142561-3pt-auger-stand.html

http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/customization/54029-post-hole-digger-stand.html

http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/attachments/79999-yet-another-post-hole-digger.html

http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/attachments/76350-stand-store-my-post-hole.html

That ought to give you some ideas.

Thanks Chuck these are what I need. There was even one hanging from a rafter which is what I am considering. One simple solution was dig a hole and leave it in the hole which sounds about to simple. I'll have to ponder leaving it outside all the time before I do that. May do that and then build a building to cover it.

 

[ChuckinNH]

You are welcome, slow morning on the chemo, so I had some time to poke around.

 

[tripletap]

What did you pay for the post hole digger please ...? thx

 

[JOHNTHOMAS]

What did you pay for the post hole digger please ...? thx

$600 plus tax.

 

[Tom_H]

...slow morning on the chemo...

So sorry to hear this. Surely hope it works for you. My best thoughts and wishes.

 

[milkman]

I've wanted one of these for a long time but removing and reattaching looks like a bear of a job. You that have one of these and take it off and on please share secrets. As of now I'm thinking of attaching a pulley to ceiling in tractor building and hoisting it up and letting it hang. After unloading tractor I dug 2 holes and it did good and with practice I believe it will be fun and easy. Just getting it off and on looks like the issue.

I've had one on and off a few times, I let the auger down to the ground, unhook the PTO then pull the pin out of the boom at the gearbox, it's pretty easy to handle just the gearbox and auger with the PTO folded along the auger. Then I pull the pin from the boom at the arch and let the arch fall forward, take out the top TPH pin in the end of the boom and lay the boom aside then unhook the arch from the TPH. When I put it back on, I put the arch on first, then the boom, then the gearbox and auger then hook up the PTO. one person with two bad shoulders can do it piece at a time.