Root collar excavation beat my $600 air spade fear

Everyone on here pushes the air spade like it's the only way to do root collar excavation. I get it, they're fast and clean on big jobs. But I've been doing this for 14 years in the Pacific Northwest and I still grab my hand tools first. Last week I had a 45 year old maple in Beaverton with a buried flare, probably 8 inches of soil on top. Instead of renting the air spade for $180, I spent 5 hours with a pry bar, a hose, and a shop vac. It was slow and my back hurt after, but I could feel every root, find the girdling ones without blasting them. The air spade is great when the dirt is compacted clay, but in this sandy loam it just makes a mess. Has anyone else gone back to hand digging for smaller trees, or am I just stubborn?

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ruby_rivera7617d ago

You know, I used to be one of those people who swore by the air spade for everything. I figured if you weren't using it, you were just working too hard. But last spring I had a similar situation with an old oak, not quite as deep as yours, but the soil was so soft and loamy that the air spade just turned the whole root zone into a muddy soup. I couldn't tell what was live root and what was just wet dirt. Took me a half day with a hand trowel and my fingers to actually fix the girdling root I was after. You're not stubborn, you're smart. Sometimes the slow way is the only way to really see what's going on down there.