Denis Holman is old growth in the tree-planting industry.
Holman, 47, may no longer be ‘highballer,’ but still thriving in young person's game
I arrived at the Ivanhoe on Main in polka-dot Lululemons and an ivory Club Monaco cardigan. Yes, it was last season’s cardigan, but I didn’t want to stand out.
I came to meet Denis Holman, tree planter.
There was a time when Holman was little more than your garden-variety tree planter, eager to work as a young man in a young man’s game.
But now he’s 47 and slightly worn from years of slamming trees into the ground. He’s old growth. In fact, at times, on his piece of land, he’s the oldest thing standing for acres.
It’s stating the obvious to say tree planting isn’t for everyone. I can get anxious if I find myself on the lonely side of a door. But that solitude, that’s just one of the things that sends Holman back to the wilderness.
“About a week before you go, you get really antsy — excited and nervous. You’re going to see some old friends and be back out in the middle of nowhere sleeping in your tent. But you also know the first two weeks are going to hurt like f---."
Holman swears a lot. It’s his punctuation.
Planters get paid by the tree. It’s piece work. It can be good money, especially if you’re a “highballer.”
“That’s a guy or girl consistently making 250 to 500 a day, regardless of the ground,” Holman tells me. "They’re slamming in between 3,000 and 6,000 trees a day. I know a couple of guys my age still doing that. They’re exceptional planters.
“I can’t any more. My biggest day was 5,500. I was 27. We had this creamy contract, man. It was just cream (soft mineral-rich ground). It was really easy to smack in that many trees.”
The physical hardships are many. Understandably, the older you are, the more things hurt.
The subject of drugs in camp is not one Holman is comfortable talking about unless the drug is Advil. Advil is big with this gig.
There is mental hardship as well, of course.
"You start at seven. You’ve been up since five. Been on the road for an hour. You’re tired and sore from the day before. You fill up the hate bags (the bags you carry around all day). You slap them on. You step out. You’re all by yourself. You make a slot. Slap your first tree in and say to yourself: 'There’s 12 f---ing cents.' Take two steps, do it again. 'There’s 24 f---ing cents.'
“The beginning of the day can really get to a guy. But next thing you know it’s noon and you’ve put in 1,500 trees and you’re like: 'That’s 170 bucks. Cool.’"
The stresses change as the tour of duty moves along (three to six months usually). At the start of the season, civilization is not something he misses. At about two months, “you start to miss stuff like slurpees and sushi."
The perils are numerous: Bears, moose, poison plants, mosquitoes ...
“One year I slammed my shovel in and hit an underground hornets’ nest. I woke up two days later in the hospital. I looked like Rocky Denis.”
If all this sounds unappealing — don’t forget picking black flies out of your belly button — there’s always the sex to look forward to.
“Torrid love affairs,” Holman says, lighting up like a Catherine wheel. “Utterly torrid. It’s awesome.”
We talk for hours. He always brings the conversation back to the trees.
“Here’s the deal,” he says. “You need to plant a sexy tree every time. You can’t just slut them in. Each tree needs to be perfectly straight and in proper mineral soil. No duff shots. No red rot.”
He adds, “You should come out, man. You really should.”
That would be fun, I say, not meaning it.
But it gets me thinking: Does Lululemon have a tree-planting line?