Need a 4000 lb palm tree lifted off a low boy trailer and put into a hole right by the trailer. Palm tree is is typically wrapped with a chain at the bottom and lifted just enough to get off the trailer.

I suspect it is about a 30 minute job (not including travel time to and from site in West Houston).

Sunstate rental is nearby, so that is an option. I really wanted to avoid having to rent myself just due to the pita of having to trailer / untrailer the loader / forkift.

Anyone have any experience on how to locate an independent contractor that may be interested in this type of job?

I would talk to the local nurseries. They probably could turnkey the whole job of planting it for you for cheaper than you could rent the machine yourself. There is a tree farm at clay and barker cypress that sells a bunch of palm trees...they would be my first call.

We purchased 4 palm trees, planted in the ground by the grower for less than 1/3 the price of any of the 5 local nursery / palm tree dealers we got quotes from.

I contacted nearly every local palm tree company for bids. There is no beating the price or the quality of tree as they are actually grown here from seeds as opposed to having them dug up and trucked from California or Florida.

The only small inconvenience is I have to lift the 2 large ones off his truck. We have tractors and a forklift that can easily do this, I just don't want to haul them 80-100 miles round trip on a trailer.

The typical fee for this is about $300-$400 if you find someone nearby.

As a last resort, I will run down the street and rent a forklift for a half a day and my cost will then be just over 1/3 the next lowest bid.

I was just hoping someone on Texags had a relative, buddy or someone that did dirt / tractor work.

The Barker Cypress palm tree place was one of the bids that was over 3X the price we purchased for.

Also, I would never recommend having expensive palm trees planted by a third party. They typically don't know how.