How to plant a tree in solid rock

Grab your potted tree and find a spot with another tree nearby so it won't get lonely.

£90 chinese inverter from ebay UK and 40 euro cheap Lidl hammer drill. Spend some money on quality tools if you like but this stuff has lasted me years in the heat and dust. The 25 yr old Land Cruiser... now that IS quality

Once u've dug the crater with the hammer drill, switch to the masonry drill and make some deep holes so the roots can chase the water down.

Water the hole before planting. This tree's roots were getting tangled in the pot, so they were untangled while waiting for the water to drain.

Happy tree, let's see how happy it is after a couple of months in the desert. Total time of job: 40 mins.

good to know I have land that is pretty much the same as what I am seeing here.

I've put tens of trees in like this since and the most tedious part of this job is making the crater. Not just the time and effort to do it but the fact the truck engine is running for 20+ mins to power the drill is a negative.

The masonry drill I used when I started this thread was 30cm long.

I've since switched to digging a much smaller crater and then a single hole with a 1 metre long masonry drill and putting in trees that are younger and smaller. I'm thinking that the roots will benefit more from going deeper than from having a bigger but shallower rootball and the power tool time is easily halved. Or put another way I can plant more than twice as many trees in the same amount of time. I'm hoping the trees that are able to send 1 metre deep roots easily will outperform trees that were initially bigger but have to fight thru rock to get roots more than 30 cms down.

I've also started leaving the craters for a few days before planting. I notice that if I leave a crater, then a couple of days later it's full of rabbit droppings. Seems the local rabbits like to crap in my holes. Ill take the free help!

have you any pics of how they are doing

David

David Livingston wrote:have you any pics of how they are doing

No but will get some and post them soon

Steve Farmer wrote:I've put tens of trees in like this since and the most tedious part of this job is making the crater. Not just the time and effort to do it but the fact the truck engine is running for 20+ mins to power the drill is a negative.

The masonry drill I used when I started this thread was 30cm long.

I've since switched to digging a much smaller crater and then a single hole with a 1 metre long masonry drill and putting in trees that are younger and smaller. I'm thinking that the roots will benefit more from going deeper than from having a bigger but shallower rootball and the power tool time is easily halved. Or put another way I can plant more than twice as many trees in the same amount of time. I'm hoping the trees that are able to send 1 metre deep roots easily will outperform trees that were initially bigger but have to fight thru rock to get roots more than 30 cms down.

I've also started leaving the craters for a few days before planting. I notice that if I leave a crater, then a couple of days later it's full of rabbit droppings. Seems the local rabbits like to crap in my holes. Ill take the free help!

why craters? why not dig square holes instead?

Steve Farmer wrote:Grab your potted tree and find a spot with another tree nearby so it won't get lonely.

£90 chinese inverter from ebay UK and 40 euro cheap Lidl hammer drill. Spend some money on quality tools if you like but this stuff has lasted me years in the heat and dust. The 25 yr old Land Cruiser... now that IS quality

Any updates on how the trees are doing?