woodplans

Planting big trees is fun, we do lots every year. It is satisfiying to see the results at the end of the day. Transplants and cellgrown forestry planting is a different matter, quite tedious with lots of bending. Having said that, its all in the mindset. As metioned before music is a must. Good luck witht the trial.

Tying the bundles up would be a right pain too. I reckon you would be better just attacking the pile of billets and see what happens:001_smile:

For all those with an 880 kicking around that never gets used. [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1jGmFgfNBo&feature=related]YouTube - Motorsäge Stihl MS 880 - Schwert Extralang- www.bsjw.ch[/ame]

Ed, have you seen this one mate: [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ex_PJCPI49w&feature=related]YouTube - Flying Cats[/ame]

There are some good points and opinions being but forward here. I feel it is especially relevant at the moment to know what your overheads are, as mentioned earlier some income is better than none when work is lean. And yes firms will work at zero profit to get through the worst. But it amazes me how many small firms/ self employed do not know what they need to break even each year. Lets face it if you are working for the sake of just turning money over without actually ending up with any, you may as well sit at home and wait for times to improve or try something more lucrative. All it takes is a breakdown on a job with no margin to go backwards. Then the next job has to make money just to be back at zero.

My take on it is slightly different to most as we do a large percentage of our turnover from landscaping projects. For these we pay for materials and plant etc. Except we have no real markup on the materials You cannot run an effective Landscape,building or for that matter arb company by relying on mark up to generate profit. It took me a long time to get my head around this after it was explained to me, but the system works. The most important number you are ever going to need is your cost of being in business..your overhead. As metioned before this includes everything you are spending through out the year to be in business from wages right down to postage stamps and paperclips. Also include for breakdowns and replacement of kit. Only when you no your true costs can you create a profit margin. When you have this number you can then divide it down to monthly, weekly, daily even hourly. Now you can say I want to run my business at a 10%,20%, 25% profit, now add this on to your costs. What you are selling is not tree work, it is billable hours, and each one of these hours should have a profit attached. This way every hour worked is generating a profit. When it comes to marking up materials its a difficult topic, but briefly if one month you do a job that has expensive materials which you mark up say 20% you have a good profit month, the next month you work just as hard but use hardly any materials or cheap materials= profits down, but the same overhead costs occured as the previous month, it is far more reliable to be accounting for your profits in your hourly rate than relying on materials etc. This way you know what your profit for the year will be aslong as you can fill the man hours that you are selling.

Stevie, Not used these guys but I hear that they are pretty good. Bellwood Trees - | Semi-Mature Tree & Hedging Nursery | Scotland - London - Manchester - Newcastle

It would be great to get an aerial shot of the site mate. The drag trails back to the landing would make a decent shot. Almost carving it up into segments.

This is what they mean Dean: Vale Engineering

Bundle, I agree with you, we recently priced a job planting some large ( 40 - 45 cm ) girth trees. The architects spec called for root deflectors in each tree pit plus 300mm of clean drainage fill at 1500mm deep the area available for the tree to root into worked out at 8 m3 !!! The worst part was that they were not even in a paved area, but 15 metre back from a road in an area of newly seeded grass. We queried it with the main contractor who's reply was "just do it to the spec" I decided to pass on that job, as i felt the whole exercise was a waste of time.

Sounds like a great idea mate. We donate quite a few trees to local schools, villages etc. It a very rewarding thing to do, and only really costs your time in input. It also gives a positive image for the industry as a whole.

PG horticulture sell the container bags, they are based in Eye.

Gibbon, We get ours from these guys: http://www.amenity.co.uk/PDFs/fencing%20and%20barriers%2009.pdf Urban Planting | Green-Tech: Landscaping and Forestry Products

Mark, Planting in a pot so that you can ensure that the trees have sufficient moisture and remain free from weed competition for a year or two, will certainly improve the chances of them making it in the wild.

Lancstree, There is quite abit of info on line, the forestry commission have a good basic guide you can buy for a fiver or download for free: http://www.forestry.gov.uk/pdf/fcpg018.pdf/$FILE/fcpg018.pdf Forestart sell tree seeds of many species and have some good info on stratification: Welcome to Forestart - The premier suppliers of quality tree and shrub seed in Britain If you want more complex info try this site: Raising Seedlings at Home — RNGR: Reforestation, Nurseries, & Genetics Resources Its an interesting thing to do, especially if you collect your own seeds. I have got a bit carried away with it, and now grow about 5 thousand plants every year, and actually make a little money out of it too.

I feel discombobulated.

Highland, The most important job you have as a business owner is sending out invoices and chasing late payers. Make time to do it, even if it means missing a day out on the tools once a week. I used to be lax about this part, I got burnt once. so I am speaking from experience learnt the hard way.

Stevie, the above post is a very good bit of advice, especially the bit about mental wheeling and dealing. When i first started out I would never say no to anything, always taking on the little pain in the ass jobs for the big contractors etc, thinking they will lead to bigger and better jobs, some did, most did not. One particular job was done when we were really pushed for time, but we mananged to squeeze it in. The company said it will lead to lots of land clearance work for there new developments, I got one more job out of them, had to fight for the money,I hear that now they are in administration. The hard work and mental anguish was not worth it. Choose your customers, don't let them dictate terms, walk away from it if your not satisfied. And always remember if you are unlucky enough to loose 5k from a non paying customer, working on 20% profit margin you need to turn over 25k just to be back where you started, worth remembering when you feel guilty about turning down work.

That will definetly never work, try it the other way.

The one benefit of working under the CIS scheme for a big chunk of my work is that i do not have to worry to much about saving for the Tax Man, Vat is a different matter. I find what does help is to save all my large purchases until the end of the quarter, this way you have the VAT cash back in the bank within a few weeks, it is worth planning your equipment purchases this way, as it really helps with cash flow. A couple of my commercial clients work on a 90 days terms, I now try and avoid doing to much for them as this really screws the cash flow, plus in the current climate alot can happen in 90 days:thumbdown:

Can you stack them that high with your roofmount stevie?

Nice work Ed, Good to have a nice project to get stuck into for a while mate.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrSyRbfKU2U&feature=related]YouTube - Timber[/ame]

There is a uk company that markets garlic based washes and drenches for use in organic food production. It is supposed to work well as a winter wash for fruit trees. We have used it on our own small tree seedling nursery against mildew and various pests etc. Last year was the first year we trialled it. results were quite encouraging. Here is a link. Welcome to Aston Horticulture's website producers of garlic based horticultural spray products

Stevie, As Baz states, once you know how to operate them they can be used almost anywhere with little damage. The trick we have is to always have a couple of 8 x 4 ground mats with the machine. Then if you need to spin on the spot on a lawn or paviors you can do it without leaving a mark.