Planting trees -- saving money on labor?

[branv]

We need to buy and plant about 10-12 trees, approx 7 gallons each. And we need holes dug twice as wide...so, yeah. Lotta big holes. We found a good price for the trees and delivery, but the pricing everyone charges for digging the holes for the trees is REALLY high. DH has emphatically stated we are NOT doing the digging. We planted two tiny crepe myrtles a few years back, and that clay, rock-filled dirt just about killed both of us (hey...it gets HOT here. Okay, and we're out of shape). We looked into renting a two-person auger, which would also require truck rental, and that came to about $200 for the day. I, however, am concerned about one (or both) of us getting hurt as we have no experience or safety equipment. We looked into places that dig holes, but they use equipment that won't fit into our backyard. I guess, therefore, our other option is hiring manual labor. One rate I saw was $15/per man, per hour. That seems GREAT. But then, I realized, I don't have a CLUE how long it should take a person used to this kind of work to dig that many holes. So I don't know just how much more that ends up being than just renting the equipment and doing it ourselves.

Frankly, I'm flummoxed. So I guess I'm wondering a) any suggestions for what we should expect to pay someone / how long it should take to dig that many holes and/or b) if anyone else has used one of those rental augers to dig holes and just how hard it was (and is it worth the savings?).

Thanks!

 

[Colleen27]

We didn't find a (one man) rental auger to be hand to handle at all, but my DH is used to heavy/manual work and our soil isn't dense at all.

Have you looked around on Craigslist or in your local paper? We recently had a section of our yard tilled and we were able to find someone in our community who puts his lawn equipment to use to earn extra cash on the weekends. We'd have spent $75 to rent a tiller and about $20 in gas driving back and forth to the rental place for pick up and drop off, and this guy only charged us $100. Every person I contacted locally was willing to come out and give us a price after looking over the yard and access to see exactly what needed to be done, so we were able to get a feel for the going rate and find someone who could get the work done on our schedule.

 

[disneyofcourse]

I have had tons of trees planted. I've used the actual nursery the plants came from most often. They charged 30% of the plant value which included the labor, delivery and a warranty. Well worth the cost because of how expensive these trees were! If I'm spending the money anyway, I'd rather have it done right and see the tree live.

For smaller shrubs I ended up using a company that came out with an auger. It cost just under $300 and it took about 5 hours to do. I was also having some other tree work done so I think that was a discounted rate .

 

[ilovemk76]

I would be very careful who I had do this. Make sure they have the proper insurance and other paperwork required by your state. This is in case somebody gets injured while on your property.