Why we bury the basket

Of everything that travels with one of our trees, the piece people ask about most is the basket. It looks almost agricultural beside the tree it carries: a steel frame lined with hessian, built to hold several tonnes of root ball. Then we plant the whole thing, basket and all, and the questions really start.

Built for one tree

Each basket is engineer-designed and independently certified to Australian Standards AS/NZS 1170 and AS 4100. The smallest carries 1,300 kilograms; the heavy duty 1.8 metre basket is certified to nine tonnes. A basket serves a single tree through at most three lifts: out of our ground, onto the truck, into your garden.

Why it stays in the ground

A root ball that has just travelled hundreds of kilometres wants stillness, not handling. Cutting a basket away would disturb the very roots the whole method protects. So the basket goes into the hole with the tree: the hessian rots in the first seasons, the wire degrades in the soil, and the roots grow through and past it into your ground. The basket is sacrificial by design. It does its work and disappears.

The export trade reaches the same conclusion by a longer road. Ornatec International's field record of lifting and root balling a mature tree sets out the proportions and the handling rules that let a ball survive weeks at sea.

What to look for on delivery day

North marked on the root ball, so the tree faces the sun the way it grew. Eight tensioned straps holding the ball firm. And a crane placing the whole assembly into a hole dug wide, not deep. From there, the tree does the rest.

The full load table is on our Delivery & Craneage page, and the method behind the planting lives in the Planting Library.