Can You Make Money Planting Trees?

Woodman

Woodman

Location
Northwest PA
Hey fellas,
I run a tree service in NW Pennsylvania. I've got 4-6 guys on my crew plus myself. We mainly do removals and trimming. I'm starting to get into PHC. My question is if there's enough money in planting trees to make it worth it. I have clients ask fairly often if I plant and I've always said no. But I'm starting to wonder if I'm missing out on another revenue stream. If you do plant trees, what the best equipment set up to do it?
 
Yes it’s easy money. With forks, auger, mini, and a King of Spades you can have a tree in the ground in 15-20 minutes. For example: tree costs $250, you plant the tree for $250 + mulch ring charge $50. And it brings you future work it also instills a sense of custodianship in your customer that you are the guy to take care of their baby tree. I really enjoy planting trees for customers it’s a nice break from cutting them.
 
Just finished planting a cedar hedge this week. It took a day and a half. Even doing it with only two guys and minimal equipment there was still nearly $4000 profit. And these are only baby trees. If you are planting anything substantial and have the right equipment it can be very profitable.

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I KNOW A FEW ARBOS WHO HAVE GOne the next step and become growers. Either using proper sized pots or going with a gravel bed growing system they grow trees with robust root systems. they found that buying potted material from wholesalers meant spending time de-potting and undoing girdling root issues. Cheaper to plant and grow right from the beginning. When they got into being growers they priced competitive to the nursery industry, Soon, they realized that their clients had upscale coffee and car desires and moved prices up. Not price gouging but pricing that reflected to skill and intimate care that they gave their stock.

These guys have made planting a money maker for themselves.
 
flushcut said:
Yes it’s easy money. With forks, auger, mini, and a King of Spades you can have a tree in the ground in 15-20 minutes. For example: tree costs $250, you plant the tree for $250 + mulch ring charge $50. And it brings you future work it also instills a sense of custodianship in your customer that you are the guy to take care of their baby tree. I really enjoy planting trees for customers it’s a nice break from cutting them.
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You must be getting trees that are already at correct depth. I cannot find that consistently from any of the nurseries we have bought from. We spend 15+ minutes excavating root balls to find the root collar and cut off girdling roots.
 
I've raise prices by about 15-20% this year and feel it's now decently profitable. We were too low as I was afraid to price out of the market. People still say "well, that's the cost of the tree, how much to plant it" which tells me I'm still below what the market will bear.

Sometimes I kinda don't want to keep planting. It takes about 2 weeks out of the spring and 2 weeks out of the fall, plus a lot of extra time finding the trees, etc. But literally nobody else right around here plants trees well. They throw the tree as it comes from the nursery in the ground (so it's starting too deep) then they have to bury it deep enough to hide the burlap and wire the left on the tree. Or straight outta the container and into the ground. Then 8" of mulch.

Even the big nursery where I buy trees has a landscape crew that doesn't get it right. We were pruning 3 year old trees for a city they planted. All of the root collars were exposed...but the still sat 3" below surrounding grade. Homeowners are gonna be filling that in and "landscapers" are already mounding mulch.

The other company who did them right is now only planting for select clients and referring the rest to us
 
flushcut said:
Yes it’s easy money. With forks, auger, mini, and a King of Spades you can have a tree in the ground in 15-20 minutes. For example: tree costs $250, you plant the tree for $250 + mulch ring charge $50. And it brings you future work it also instills a sense of custodianship in your customer that you are the guy to take care of their baby tree. I really enjoy planting trees for customers it’s a nice break from cutting them.
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Thanks for all the input everyone, definitely helpful. Is a King of Spades a shovel? What makes it different from a regular spade?
 
Boomslang said:
Just finished planting a cedar hedge this week. It took a day and a half. Even doing it with only two guys and minimal equipment there was still nearly $4000 profit. And these are only baby trees. If you are planting anything substantial and have the right equipment it can be very profitable.

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Looks great. You say you used minimal equipment. How did you dig the ditch? Mini excavator?
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Woodman said:
Looks great. You say you used minimal equipment. How did you dig the ditch? Mini excavator?
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Yes, rented a mini excavator for half a day to quickly dig the trench. Everything else (including hauling away the sod and hundreds of rocks) was done with shovel and wheelbarrow.
 
I think it’s profitable but going to the nursery and figuring out what the client wants and what’s available is time consuming. And I can’t compete with the nurseries and landscapers that don’t plant properly. So I decided I’m just going to raise my prices to where I’m comfortable and if I don’t get the job, I don’t care (Should have had this approach to all aspects of the tree business years ago).

Wish I could grow my own trees. I would grow a couple different evergreens, a couple different shade trees, and a couple smaller trees and say this is what I have to offer.

If you’re going to spend the time to expose the root flares and correct the roots at the time of planting and selecting quality canopy structure, I think we all need to be charging a premium. Hardly anybody does that. Yesterday I luckily caught a municipality getting ready to plant the tree in the pic for Arbor Day and I had them pull it out of the ground and build it up and remove the burlap etc. You can see where the plywood is would have been ground level.

I know one of the biggest Tree Care companies in my area charges $725 to plant one 2 inch caliper tree with a one year warranty.
 

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Yes, planting can be very profitable. With that said, I still send plantings to a buddy who works as owner/operator because his overhead is so low. Also, the aftercare is what really keeps me on the fence about planting. Once you leave the site, how are they going to follow through with an on point watering schedule? If the tree starts to struggle, how long will the client wait to let you know? Contracts will obviously help with these issues but what a client doesn’t understand could turn into bad reviews and headaches.
This is just something to think about and mitigate into your plan of moving forward.
 
Woodman said:
Thanks for all the input everyone, definitely helpful. Is a King of Spades a shovel? What makes it different from a regular spade?
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Yes King of Spades is a shovel all steel, indestructible, and holds a knife edge. They are just a nice tool for tree planting.
 
ATH said:
You must be getting trees that are already at correct depth. I cannot find that consistently from any of the nurseries we have bought from. We spend 15+ minutes excavating root balls to find the root collar and cut off girdling roots.
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They are pretty good at not burring the root collar but I do need to shave the ball every now and again. B and B not container grown.
 
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I absoluetly love planting but I struggle to price it in a manner that is affordable/appealing for my customers. So here are my questions;
1. How do you deal with the warranty period? How long is it? What does it cover? What does it not cover? What happens if the tree dies? How frequently do you get warranty claims?
2. What is your equipment set up?
3. What is your process as far as;
A. Who selects the plant and delivers it to site?
B. Do you get paid for all the pre work?
4. How do you grow this segment of your business?
 
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