Spade-Style Shrub Mover

Spade-Style Shrub Mover MISCELLANEOUS EQUIPMENT Miscellaneous 29-1-26 Claude Reeson is in the nursery business and needed a way to dig out and transport shrubs. So some friends of his came up with a low-cost shrub mover that uses a bunch of ordinary hand-held shovels held together by metal bars and nylon straps. The shrub mover hangs from a 12-ft. "boom" that attaches to the front-end loader on his tractor. "Normally a conventional tree digger would be used to move shrubs, but mine are spaced close together and there often isn't enough room to get in next to them," he says. "With my tractor and boom I can reach over other plants and lift shrubs right out." The shrub mover makes use of an even number of shovels. Each pair of shovels - on either side of the shrub - is held together at the handles by an adjustable length of pipe that clamps onto the handles. To move a shrub, Reeson first uses a shovel to make a cut all the way around the plant to cut through the roots. He places the shovels opposite each other inside the cut at a 45 degree angle to support the rootball. Then he connects the pipes to opposite shovels and tightens a nylon strap around the base of the shovels. A series of straps runs up to a hook welded onto the end of the boom. "It's simple, lightweight, and relatively inexpensive to build - the only cost is for shovels, clamps, straps, and pipe," says Reeson. "The plant is being lifted from the base of the shovels. You can use as many shovels as you want as long as it's an even number. I've used it on rootballs up to 4 ft. in diameter. I use two different lengths of shovels to keep the cross pipes from interfering with each other." Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Claude W. Reeson, 8263 Colonial Trail West, Spring Grove, Va. 23881 (ph 757 866-8479).

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