We bought a property a couple months ago and are looking spading in about 15 10-15' spruce trees in our backyard. We've had quotes to do the spading alone for between $2000-2800. I can buy a vermeer ts44a pull type spading unit for $8000, looks to be in real nice shape. Thinking about buying one instead of throwing away $2000 min in hiring a spade company, and put that towards one myself.

• Vermeer
• Vermeer Ts44a For Sale

I'll advertise spading services, see if something comes of it, and if not, hopefully will be able to sell the unit for what I paid for it. What do you think?

Nice looking machine. You can do that size of tree no problem. 12 inch root ball per 1 inch tree caliper is my rule of thumb. Buying baskets and burlap and rope and crimping device and gas and so on costs money. Its not cheap.

If you are only going to move 15 trees, pay the guy to do it. A 44' ball will do just fine for your trees that being said we never had much luck with trailer mounted units so I can't speak to the quality of that, our clay soil down here prevented them from getting much penetration into the soil. Vermeer's spade are as a whole pretty good, we have two, they're not as meaty/tough as what big john makes but they've gotten the job done. I'd buy another big john though instead of a vermeer.

Vermeer

Saying this because I think vermeer might have quit the spade business.as far as work I wouldn't think you'd get much with that small of a unit, usually spading job are going to be with the big boys (90-100'). Any self respecting b&b nursery is going to have a 44'-50' spade and honestly you can basket a tree and put 10-15 more on a trailer and make one trip with trees that size as opposed to running laps. So unless you see a lot of people running up and down the road w/ 44' spades behind their truck/ and have soft soil I'd probably recommend letting the other guy doing it and save yourself 6 large. Thanks for the tips.HayBay, I do not know all the ins and outs of spading, but everyone has to start somewhere, and the first 30 trees I spade will be for myself and transplanting at my parents place, so I've got lots of time to learn. I do have enough equipment to aid this venture as well.Thanks for your advice Brandon too. I think I'm still gonna go ahead and purchase the unit because I've already got worked lined up for it after talking to some locals about it. Its not a lot of work, but at the same time, I don't have a lot invested.

Vermeer Ts44a For Sale

Sure most of the work is for the 90-100' spades, but youre also looking at a 100k investment to get one that big.I didnt make one thing clear in my first post. If I buy the spade, I can get the trees for free since I'm doing a friend a favor, if I hire a spade company, I pay him 2000, plus I pay for the trees, so likely would have been around 3-3500 by the time the trees were bought and planted - but no ownership of spade. Star wars rpg saga edition the unknown regions pdf to jpg. Now, basically I pay 7500 for the spade, and get the trees free. So really, the spade is only costing me 4000. Long winded, but hopefully that makes more sense.