Quote Originally Posted by hemmjo View Post
I know what you mean, but this made me laugh anyway. I wonder if the guys get tired of holding the tree?

The bigger the tree, the more difficult it is to keep alive after moving it.

When I built our home in the late 80's I had no trees on the property. Did not have enough money for many trees. Instead I got 100's of seedlings for 25 cents each. I planted them in the spring a year after a guy up the road had a bunch or 6' trees planted. 5 years later, my seedlings had grown to over 6 feet, about the same height as my neighbor. In the next 5 years, mine were double the height of his trees. Same specie tree, Norway Spruce. I did water mine on a schedule, the first 2 years to get them off to a good start.
A small 5 acre property I used to own only had a single tree when I bought it. At the time I lived in a mobile home so when we moved it onto the property there was no way to situate it where the tree would be close. So, I did like you. I ordered I think 200 what I hoped were live twigs. Mostly various fruit and pecan trees which should grow and eventually possibly become a cash crop If I were lucky. The rest were a hodge podge mix of trees the arborist. completed the order with. When the several small bundles of twigs arrived with instructions attached to each bundle, I had my work cut out for me. I rented a tractor with a 12" post hole digger laid out a grid pattern orchard style for the fruit trees then again for the pecan trees for the rest of the trees they I drilled holes in a random non uniform pattern. I drilled every hole as deep as the auger would go then back filled and tamped down the fill with a mix of root growth stimulating fertilizer. horse stable clean out, sandy loam, and the dirt that was removed form the hole until I had reached the proper depth for planting the twigs or about 6 to 10 inches The instructions on many of the twigs stated I only needed to dig and fill a hole of about 12 inches. But is you have the tools why not disturb the rocky black clay and add some extra nutrients while your at it I thought. The place I bought my twigs from must have figured on a 30% loss because I wound up drilling about 260 holes. 7 years later when I sold the property. some of the fruit trees had been producing a small amount for a couple of years Some of the twigs turned out to be just that, but by far more lived and grew than died or never started 20 years later the back of that property looked like the beginnings of a small forest while the front is a mostly aging or dying orchard, save for the pecan Apple, pear. and a thicket of plum trees. the folks who bought it never spent the time to tend to the young fruit trees like they could have. I haven't seen the place in nealy 15 years so have no Idea what it looks like now I guess I could pull it up on google maps if I really cared.