You are battling the fiercest of nature to ram these little seedlings into the ground. Between two and four thousand of them daily, if you intend to make any worthwhile money. Once you have arrived frenzidly to your next plantable spot, you hope that the first place your shovel reached is an easy plunge. But often you have to use the full force of your biceps to muscle the large blade into tough and dry clay, or wrestle them through rocks, or between roots. Or you have to screef (remove) away a heavy layer of surface peet or old rotten log. Once you force your shovel into the earth, you have to create a sufficiently large wedge into which you can ram the plug (seedling roots grown into a long plug of soil), preferably straight and at the exact depth, otherwise the forester will fail your tree and you will suffer a painful fine.

I used to take Aikido, a defensive form of martial arts, and I always marvelled at the difference between that group and the previous one we were replacing in the gym and who were studying karate. Karate is aggressive and offensive, while Aikido is much more defensive, using an attacking person's motions and momentum against them. I developed a theory that, because it was so much more defensive, students of the Aikido class were much more cheery and positive, while the karate students seemed cross and looking for a confrontation. In the same way I speculated that the good environmental deeds of the treeplanter either attracted or fostered a peaceful and environmentally concerned character. Tree planters are generally independent thinking, care about their health, their environment, and more on the left of the political spectrum. But they are also zany. I guess you have to be to endure these conditions. Many play musical instruments and are creative in general. Many work hard but also party hard. I definitely feel a nostalgic romance about tree planters in general.

In the days when I first started planting (around 1990), tree planters were made of three types of people, about one third of the group each. In British Colombia, one group owned some property on an island along the coast, where they often had no electricity, raised their own cows, didn't pay taxes, and worked hard treeplanting for a certain amount of months so that they could collect unemployment insurance for the rest of the year and grow dope on their property to sell to the Californian market.

The islands were difficult to get to and the BC ferry system was technically the largest naval fleet in the world (in terms of number of boats). Such islanders felt their island was their own country and were not interested in integrating themselves into the corporate and consuming world. The second group also collected unemployment insurance for the rest of the year, but would use it to travel around the world, mostly in third world and inexpensive countries, where they could live like kings and learn many interesting stories about other countries. I found these two groups of tree planters quite interesting and they varied in age - from 20 to 53. The third group were like myself - young students who worked hard to pay their way through university. But they were zany and interesting as well.

The same thing is apparently now happening in the pine cone picking industry. One fast planter here described to me how he makes about 600 bucks a day picking cones because the industry is mostly populated by older crack heads who are not capable of picking so many cones, for which reason the prices are designed for their speed. I gather this industry might also eventually be invaded and taken over by the young bucks. After all, the higher the output of each person, the greater the profits of the company, and hence their attraction to such productive personnel.

Going back to how I felt the environmentally friendly nature of this treeplanting job created a more socially and environmentally concerned character, I used to fantasize that animals, like bear, moose or deer who would sometimes sit in the open space and stare at you while you plant, would thank these kind replacers of the forest. I felt safer because of my "concerned character" and had faith that the animals could sense it.

Because I like to design webpages, and I'd like to sell my tree planting accounting software, I thought I'd put these pages together and write down all the tricks I know of how to make good money while planting trees. You would think that it mostly depends on brute force, but most of it depends on efficiency of movement and the right drive. I've seen small framed little girls planting double or more of hard working and muscular males. I have planted for seven years. For the first six I was at the top of my crew, although sometimes I would run into tree planters who would plant almost double what I did. I discounted them as mad people out in the stars and who should not be counted. But when I came back for my seventh year some 17 years later, I found myself on a crew that were comprised only of highballers (fast planters), and I was one of their slowest. Even though I had picked up new tricks and was earning and planting more than when I had been planting earlier. During all these years I picked up a lot of tricks, and I'd like to try and explain them to you all here.  

I'd say there are several factors which can help you plant many trees per day:

To plant a fast tree, you want to make a good micro site selection. Your shovel is a tool that can be used in many ways. Such as a probe to help you find the exact spot. You can poke the blade at the ground and learn to feel what it must be like underneath. Sometimes I've planted on very rocky ground, but by poking I could feel where the rocks were smaller, would give way a bit, and where I felt I would be more likely to be able to wedge the blade into the earth. Other times you learn to read the ground <pics> for more ideal spots, such as soft soil between the roots of a large stump, where you see a thin layer of moss over rounded earth - an indication of moister and softer ground capable of supporting such thirsty vegetation.

We should start this story at the point of planting the previous tree. While you are hunched over and burying your tree into the ground, you might have time to look around a bit, scan the ground, look for your other trees, and plan where roughly to plant your next tree.

In an ideal world with prestine beach sand and no obstacles, a fast planter would generally plant their trees about 1.6 metres apart - the minimum of the contract specs - so that they could walk shorter distances between trees and hence plant more trees per day. If they plant a row of trees at this short distance from one another, obviously the next row would have to lie farther than 2.5 metres distance from the first row in order to achieve an average of 7 trees per plot. This takes a bit of skill to get a nack for.

But the main purpose of this minimum is to help the planter achieve the desired number of trees per plot when there is a lot of slash to work around. Obviously it might be next to impossible to plant a tree under a pile of dead trees.

There are therefore two strategies you can take when filling in a certain area: line planting or area planting. Line planting can be good when it is not so difficult to plant in straight lines. In this case you can get into a quick rhythm and pound your trees in, one after another, in an easy straight line not requiring much thinking or searching for your trees off of which to space your next ones. But if the slash is too high and obstructive, it could be better to break your line and fill in small areas, planting around slash to save time. When you first start planting it may be going slow for you as you stare at the mess around you and wonder what is the best strategy to take, but eventually your mind will respond instantly and automatically, without much thinking. Other times I like to follow the countour of the hill, to stay on the same horizontal and avoid tiring myself by walking up and down hills, possible at strange angles.

So as you fill your piece with trees, sometimes you might fill in micro areas, other times you would bounce off your existing trees and slash, and other times line plant larger and easier areas.

As you slither efficiently towards your next spot and immediately after successfully planting your previous tree, you already want to be fumbling in your bag for your next tree, so that it is properly positioned in your planting hand and ready to deliver. Your shovel hand raises. You approach your next spot and already plan where you will take your first plunge. Hopefully your choice will be a good one and the blade plunges deep enough into the ground with minimal effort. Other times you may have to place your foot on one of the kickers to help force the blade into the ground. Or use two hands to wriggle it in. But one of them could already be holding the tree plug at the same time, so that you do not have to waste time fidgeting for it once you do make your hole.

Usually while you are putting your tree into the ground, or as you rise up to depart to your next spot. Usually you would fill < your piece along the back < of it, or plant along the contour < of a hill, or along some major obstruction, like a lake, so you should be going in some general direction. Most often you are planting ‘off’ your previous line <show pic> . When choosing your next spot, often you might triangulate between your last (present) tree and one tree in your previous line <link to ideal spacing etc.> . As mentioned in the spacing section < , it does not have to be exact, so while you are planting your tree or finishing up to start moving to your next tree, you already know what general direction you are heading and can quickly scan your immediate terrain to plan your route and decide roughly where you want to place your tree. This is because your route there may be obstructed by some slash < , and from a distance of roughly 2.5 metres you should already have an idea where the best plantable spot < . Having this rough strategy in your mind will help you avoid wasting time like some rookies who stand up erect after they successfully planted one tree and scratch their head while wondering where to go next.

Whenever I watched the ultra highballers, with numbers often double or more mine, they never seemed to be working harder than I. Perhaps they would spurt quicker to the next spot, but one thing I noticed is that they had that tree much faster in the ground than it took me. Over the years I have discovered and picked up from others many tricks how to limit movement, and a big part of it is to choose the correct approach (depending on the soil type, conditions, and the size of the plug <internal link> ) and do as many of them at the same time as you can. Effectively, multi-tasking. While planting, since I cannot stop myself from analysing and thinking about things, I would often imagine mimicking the difference between a low and highballer while training other planters. I will try to explain this mimick in writing, to get the point across in a more interesting way.

lang="EN-CA" One day I took a few minutes to watch a new lowballer on the crew. It was the most amazing thing. He was the slowest planter I had ever seen and planted only about 230 trees a day, which after camp costs <il> would give him about as much as if he had worked behind the counter at McDonalds. So inevitably he gave up after two weeks and went back home. The few minutes I spent watching him struggle with a single tree, I saw how he would swing the shovel handle back and forth until he created a crater sized hole large enough to plant a small rabbit in. While he made this massively large hole, he would occasionally take a break, stand up, pull out a hankerchief and wipe his brow.

While mimicking the lowballer, I might clamber through slash, waving my arms and battling with every branch trying to poke me in the eye. Struggling and bobbling my way to my next plantable spot <il?>, after which I would sigh with relief and take a gasp before diving down to work on creating a hole. I would do every movement separately. In my early days, I would find myself standing erect, pulling out some ribbon with both hands and tying it to some branch or bush, with a double not to make sure it would not blow away. I hope you get the picture. Contrast this with the way a highballer might do the same operation.

With the hole successfully sealed around the plug, the highballer already has an idea which direction he/she wants to go. In fact, while planting the tree, or while approaching the present plantable spot, he has already scanned the surrounding area and picked out his next target. While planting I follow a general direction, which my navigation senses unconciously keep in mind. As soon as I am done with one tree and while I am getting up, I start moving in that direction. You can plant a tree without even seeing another tree to plant off, because you can correct any errors through various techniques < . While in the motion of moving towards my next spot my left hand wizzes up to the ribbon which had been dandling loosely, at a specific height from my left pouch and in near proximity to the tree I was planting.

But most of the time I ninja my way through the jungle, with minimum resistance against nature, slithering through the quagmire and get to my next spot with one or two slinky and carefully targetted steps. While on the way I have found plenty of time to raise the knuckle of my right hand to my nose, close one nozzle and snort out some boogers from the other. No time for kleenex and I'll save the other nostrel for the next tree, if I can't squeeze it in during this one. While approaching and slinking my way to my next tree, my left hand is already fumbling in my case for the next tree, my right hand slowly raising the shovel, poised and moving gracefully in the air in anticipation of lunging into my next plantable spot. My assessment of the terrain was, once again, correct, and the shovel glides effortlessly into the soil, which I anticipated under that small patch of specifically coloured moss.

It doesn't matter how tough and intimidating the ground may look, you just overcome and DO it. Look at Julia treeplanting below.

Julia treeplanting: “I’m not special. If I can do it [plant 5,000 trees a day], you can too.”

You learn to read the ground <il> quickly and know roughly where the next best spot will be. Choice of spot is very important, because a poorly chosen spot, such as one full of rocks, or rotten log, or roots, will slow you down considerably. A rookie treeplanter will often find himself banging around with the shovel, using it as a probe to find nice soft soil. Not finding the best place, he may spend much longer struggling with roots etc. Like a hawk picking out its prey from high up, a veteran planter can scan and assess the immediate terrain within one or two seconds and already know exactly where to plunge the shovel. We can refer to this as the "creamy spot" < .

However, the brainy highballer will use this to his advantage such that technically every tree can be spaced at the minimum. Imagine planting 2000 trees at 2.5 metre spacing, and consider how many more trees you could have planted that day if you had walked 1.5 metres between them, instead of 2.5. That would be like taking some time off during the day and going for a two kilometre walk in the forest. Time better spent planting additional trees. When walking your line of trees and spacing off the last line, you can space farther away - perhaps at 3 metres. Making such an adjustment will enable you to plant the same number of trees per plot <il> while walking much smaller distances between trees. Let us call this "efficient space usage".

Unfortunately, we do not live in a world of cotton candy and creamy soil everywhere we go. It can be a harsh and selfish world, full of brambles, thorns, lying trees and massive stumps. Therefore, rarely might we be able to plant in straight lines of tight spacing. Especially if we are near the coast, where width of the discarded trees can be as tall as a truck, the stumps consuming a lot of space, and the slope of the hill making such line planting and forced clambering over obstacles outright absurd. This is referred to as "area planting". Zig zagging your way AROUND all the obstacles, preferably along the horizontal contour of a slope, to plant your minimum spacing like taking small steps through a complex maze. Never stepping over a log, almost never struggling to your next plantable spot, always with the minimum amount of space between trees.

It is not your job to make sure every one of your trees survive, but whatever measure you care about your trees will be visible to the checker and you will have fewer quality problems. The seedlings come equipped with juicy soil in the plug and added nutrients, so they have a bit of a head start. Usually they like to plant the trees during an optimum season for them. You may find yourself planting in wet swamp, which could become a dry desert within one month. It is a probabilities game and the industry must learn what is the best approach in each region. The best approach is to develop a sense of where the best medium is, and aim for those spots. To get your number of required trees per plot, you can squeeze more in less desireable medium, if nothing better is available. You can push the limits according to what you think the forester is after and there usually comes a point when the forester would rather you did not plant a tree where you did, because he realises the tree has no chance and you wasted one of their expensive seedlings.

For me, since I like to be so conscientious, I feel I have developed a feel for what the tree needs and give it my best shot, even if it costs me money. When the ground is drier, especially if you choose a higher spot, I like to squeeze the surrounding soil or medium more around the plug. Once it rains this can help retain a larger moist area around the tree and improve its chances of survival. When planting in rocks I'd try to tap soil from surrounding areas so that it would fall down around the tree, but most ultra highballers would never dream of performing such nonsense. When closing your hole you can often use your shovel or your planting hand to draw extra soil from surrounding areas, if needed. If you plunge your shovel into a rotten log, instead of pulling it out to look for a better spot, you can plunge your shovel deeper to get to the juicy soil beneath it, and quickly flick away some of the rotten wood so as not to bury your tree, since you planted it so deep.

For me though, I would think like the British: "I just couldnt be bloody bothered, mate!" One ultra highballer explained how she would always try to push herself during the last 30 minutes of the day. Even the last 5 minutes. We added up how much the five minutes a day added up to over a three month season and it worked out roughly 500 dollars. She continued that, once you go all out nuts during those last five minutes of the day, the next day you can make it the last 7 minutes, then 10, and eventually work your way backwards towards your very first bagup, or once you step your foot out of the truck. While I am contented to breeze my way to my next plantable spot, I see them waste no time shuffling to theirs. Other times they seem slow and relaxed. They have that frenzied expression, lunging to the next spot like their life depended on it. Others repeat that it is all about efficiency of movement. One has a certain shuffle, almost skipping to the next spot to get his feet ligned up properly for the next implant. I watched him once plant across the horizon and he looked like Lancelot in the Monty Python Holy Grale, prancing on his invisible horse with shovel dangling from his right hand. Others admit that it is a brutal job, so they reason that they might as well push themselves to the very limit and make the torture as economically profitable as possible. It can be a horrid moment to stand at the cash, looking at that large empty piece and imagine the repetitiveness of planting each successive tree. In which case it is better to go hard all day and not give your mind time to reflect on the sheer banality of it. During my first rookie year, I once made a great leap as I was planting with some faster planters. I copied that rhythm since then but was surprised that it made me no more tired at the end of the day. I consider myself a casual highballer, earning 250 dollars a day without great stress. Those who were putting in double my figures looked like they worked about as much as I did, but that they zipped faster to the next spot, and seemed to ram their tree into the ground much faster than I.

But the ultra highballer would calculate how much those cigarettes cost them that day and not even think about it. One planter suggested I shouldn't waste my time closing the hole on beach sand, saying it closes itself automatically. I would suggest that you keep thinking about everything you do, always look for a better shortcut or how to shave off those valuable seconds, and watch others, asking them for tips. Dont just proceed as 'business as usual', repeating the same method, but always look for a better and more efficient way to do things. Push yourself hard. One girl said she always pushed herself harder on the first shift of a new contract, because it would show her body what to expect (the ground is often consistent with each contract) and adjust itself accordingly. I've seen people of all shapes and sizes put in large numbers - from small little girls, to the more aged carrying a matured keg of beer around their waste. Many say that it is in your mind. Mind over matter. After my experiences with treeplanting, I feel I can accomplish anything, once I set my mind to it.

On the other hand, some measure of self control is also important. I've seen planters buzzed on Ginseng and pushing themselves so hard until they collapsed. Perhaps due to the heat, or their arm inflamed because of tendonitis; heck, one fast planter even dislocated his shoulder because of the way he was slamming his shovel into the ground. One girl broke down in tears from the stress. I deduced that she was pushing herself so hard, and became extremely frustrated when things were not working out regarding company organisation and she had to waste hours during some days waiting to plant.

You get into a frenzy rushing to the next spot, trying to maximise your earnings for that day, your adrenaline gets pumped up and seems to overcome any pain. I was on one contract where the ground was hard and felt great pain in many parts of my body the first two trees after each bagup. Once moving though my body got back into it, but within a few days I decided I needed to take at least one day off, because I felt my tendons were getting close to their limits. It is easy to get carried away and not feel the pain. If you have joint problems you could consider the staff shovel. You can wrap it in duct tape to help stop your hand from slipping down.  

I feel I have more control with the D handle, and can twist the blade to help fill the hole. To overcome the danger of hitting a hard rock, especially since I generally have joint problems, I've learned to instinctively let go a bit before slamming into the ground. Other times the soil can be mostly soft, so you can take the risk. Or you learn to read the ground better and can almost sense a hard rock coming up.

These come with shock-absorbers.

Or you just absorb the shock, which can reverberate through your entire body and stress each of the joints. You should definitely try to avoid this, and if you find yourself in rockier ground, learn to let go of the shovel more before penetration. I've also learned not to bob the hand up and down so much but rather keep it stiff and parallel with the forarm.

If deciding on a D handle, most planters now cut the staff part such that the entire length is quite short. You want to be able to manouevre with it as you twist and turn the blade to help fill your hole. Since you are hunched over with your other hand partially buried in the ground, a longer D handle shovel can make your work awkward. You can always adjust it later after you gain some experience.

The new generation (pictured right) are bent inwards a bit and have a pointy tip, for quicker penetration. You can sharpen your blade in the same way, but first try experimenting (borrow) with other blades before cutting down your larger one. I've heard that WorkWeizers can bend in half in tougher ground.
Many people like to cut off one of the kickers - to reduce weight (although weight, if you can handle it, can be an advantage since you can use the extra momentum to get the blade into the ground with less muscle or shock to your body) or to help you pull the shovel out of rooty ground.

The angle of the blade to the parallel of the D handle can also change. The standard is a slight angle, but others have radically changed it so that they can push the blade down to their side instead of in front of them. Again, you can experiment in camp with other planters' shovels and then adjust yours to your choosing. <show pics with links of different types>