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Municipal planting
I am bidding on my first munny planting. About 40 2" caliper trees and 60 shrubs (yews, winterberry holly and dogwoods). The specs call for plants to be wrapped, staked, guyed, sprayed w/ anti desiccant on transplanting, backfilled with planting mix (5 soil:2 peat:1 compost), maintained for 1 year.
There is a ton of stuff that is unclear to me and the walk around is tomorrow. (still 8 inched min of snow)
What is not specified-
do 6 ft arbs need stakes?
is watering included in "maintain for 1 (one) year"?
is it ok to sub varieties?
does the wrap go on at planting or in the fall?
some of the specs seem not so much to insure quality as to insure the contractor must utter "yes sir" and "thank you sir". And some of the specs require the contractor to do the wrong thing, like digging the planting hole 12 inches deeper than the ball, and adding planting mix, compacting, then planting the tree. Where did they get that? And, not adding more than 9 inches of planting mix at a time before watering the tree in. I have watered trees in as I plant them, and after wards I never did it again.
On average how often is a job over speced, and what do you do about it, just do it the way you always do, or do you have a sample of the planting mix tested at the agriculture testing facility. Do you fake it a little... from what I have seen of munny work, alot of it is faked.
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