In clay soil esp poorly draining clay consider that planting in a raised bed might be best. If that were a possibility then you might not need to dig at all. What you need is some loam soil to make the bed. Set the plant in position and build a bed around it. Then mulch heavily.
Beyond that just start digging. I used to dig holes in fall and plant in spring. Wet the soil, let it dry a couple of days and start digging.
I’m in the process of installing 10 trees from my nursery right now that doesn’t have clay soil, but is extremely wet. I’m using 2/3rds a yard fake soil (mostly sand and composted wood and leaves from a yard, but they call it premium top-soil) per tree and will use about a third yard of shredded wood mulch to anchor the mounds I create. Two wheel barrows of the top-soil was used to mix with existing soil and 4 more added on top of that.
I used the same method with 14 trees I planted last year including a half dozen bare root peach trees very well branched and about 2.5" diameter. All the trees plugged in and grew almost as though they were not even transplanted, so little resistance to root growth is there.
Ultimately, the somewhat limited rootzone will be a benefit, improving the quality of the fruit and limiting regrowth to some extent once trees reach desired size.
I’ve had a chance to manage similarly installed trees from transplant to 20 years later.
Took me around 12 minutes per hole on those 3 gallon plants the other day…I’m slower than I used to be. The digging was rocky (slate)and I supplemented with 1 cubic ft of “top soil” from a bag per each plant, which was on a slope almost too steep to mow.
I think everyone has given all the advice you need. I just wanted to say that I planted 11 trees last winter in my clay soil and it can be done. I probably dug up and planted 3 trees/day. I just used a pick, shovel and pitch fork and started digging after the rains. It was exhausting though. I was close to giving up but pushed through at the end. So, my only advice is, don’t increase your work load other than the trees by ordering bulbs (like I did 
) or more plants.
my daughter bought 2 from a salvage store here and both were made in china. we only looked after her boyfriend broke both handles and bent a shovel planting some trees… wood looked like some cheap spruce. was too light to be a hardwood. i always buy American made tools. might be more expensive but at least they last. i prefer the fiberglass handled ones also.
i agree. mounds and raised beds are much easier/better on hard clay . to plant on my lawn i just put down 2 layers of cardboard, put the tree on that and fill with good soil. tamp down well. mulch and stake. takes me 10 min. per tree. no digging. 5 yrs. later they’re all growing beautifully.
Raised beds in general are better than planting directly in clay soil. But they do need more watering and if you are using city water here in NorCal, I’d take the trade off of clay soil (slower growth + less water) to raised beds (better growth + more water). Except for avocados, I haven’t seen any other tree doing poorly in clay soil here.
I do too because I store my tools outside and they make handles with ash instead of hickory these days. Hickory could last a generation when stored outside.
I did score a well made potato fork made in China from AM Leonard and the forks before were always made in Austria which means expensive although they were assembled here with American ash handles. Of course I won’t really know the quality until a decade passes and it’s still functional.
I do like some of the Bully tools, especially their basic round shovel, but if you want cheap and light, Ace has 2 for 1 sales often and you can find perfectly serviceable American made shovels, rakes and hoes for a very low price.
Years ago I could buy amazing Amish made tools from Forestry supply and I have a fire hoe with a hickory handle from them that I store outside that’s still going strong after 25 years of heavy use. The steel of the blade is light but strong and the handle is kind of shaped as a rounded off rectangle so the tool doesn’t turn in your hands upon contact with soil or small rocks. A feature that is amazingly practical considering I’ve never had or seen another handle made that way.
I agree, good shovels are hard to find unless you shell out some good money. You can get some nice hoes for reasonable prices, though. We had some Rogue hoes at the community gardens in Kansas, and I’ve been strongly considering getting one for myself. Not cheap, but not too bad. And hickory handles, too!
Gempler’s carries them, I think.
For hand hoes, I’ve found none better than Red Pig Tools’ offerings. And they make some nice looking shovels, too.
mine has killed 2 apple trees slowly. the fist sized rocks in there don’t help either.
JC any experience with red pig’s clay spade? Clay Spade-LH-S000
It looks like an interesting concept. The wet clay should also be less likely to stick to the shovel when you are trying scrap it off against the nearest available surface. As stated earlier quality costs money. Add $72 in freight even though I am closer than many of you. Has anyone else used the clay spade? I am tempted to buy one.
Moose the all metal English tools are really good as well, particularly the spades.
I haven’t used that, but I’ve always thought the logic is sound. I do know that everything they make is top notch.
There are holes and then there are holes. I have a tendency to order smaller treea that are easier to plant. I have friends that dig a huge hole to plant a tree in…5’x 5’ is a hole im a little intimidated by if i have a dozen to dig. We talked and i told my friends the small trees would catch up with he the big trees by year 3 and now they buy smallrt
Are they going to be upset with you in 3 years when their trees are still small? 
Just kidding- somewhat. I’ve seen small trees (especially peaches) catch up, but it seems to depend on a lot of factors. One factor could be how big of a hole gets dug/amended. For example, I planted some trees in crappy hard soil at one property and another where the soil didn’t hold any moisture, even hours after a hard rain. My early (small hole digging) efforts at both resulting in poor growing trees with high mortality rates. My more recent plantings have involved more digging and amending. Early results are promising, but not conclusive.
I agree with you 100% @BobVance. In my friends situation i actually bought them 2 reliance peach trees which were 9’ by year 3 and out grew the larger trees they bought at the same time locally. They could not believe it so again i bought them another and the results were identical. Keep in mind i know reliance do well in this area. . I frequently plant callery and Bet rootstocks with no amendments and field graft them later. Your right some trees need lots of tlc but then the question becomes should we plant them at all? Another one of points is most large trees roots have been grown in a pot shaped ball. I want deep roots and smaller trees have a tendency to go deep faster in my experience.
I don’t trust it- no description of the handle which is just as important as the blade
They don’t have hickory handles (anymore?) in their list of options and almost everything is sold out right now, or I would have ordered one of there very interesting looking hoes. They do offer fiberglass handles.
Wish I could order one right now as planting season just started for me. They don’t even allow you to be added to a waiting list in their annoying app.
However, I wouldn’t expect the best tool makers to have the best web sites.
Hmm… maybe I was mistaken. Either way, they make very nice hoes. It looks like Gempler’s has a few models in stock.
Fun story - I was on the board of the community garden when we got these. After we convinced everyone that it would be worth buying some decent quality hoes, we got into a bitter debate about which hoes to buy. Most liked these because they were local and one of the garden members organized a group buy every year. We had one holdout that was ADAMANT that Wolfgarten was the way to go. We ended up getting mostly these, plus one set of Wolfgarten handle and heads.
One last story i must mention in this thread, a friend had a backhoe come over to his place and dig him a big hole in the ground about 8 or 9 feet deep which he added numerous bags of fertilizer in and a round bail of hay. I smiled a bit when i saw realizing ofcourse what he was doing. In this area over 90 years ago the farmers due to drought and poor modern farm practices lost all of the top soil due to wind and water erosion aka dirty thirties. Since that time dirt is never good enough. People attempt to replace what will not be replaced in their lifetime. I think in terms of hundreds of years but most people think about only what effects them. This type of thinking is a self correcting problem nature has accounted for. That old timer died many years ago. I never forgot what that man was attempting to do in his 80’s and he may only have corrected 6’ of soil but his intent was to add back that 1000 years of decomposed grasses in one year. What he didn’t realize is it and another 3 bails stacked on top of each other go over his entire field and whats at the bottom is supposed to be there. The farmers before him lost 3 round bails 6 feet tall each for a total of 20 feet of soil off the top and better add another one or 2 to account for the breakdown and settling loss over entire fields most of which now is in the gulf of Mexico. The hard digging is because thats what didn’t erode away easily.
Alan, I had already surrendered to my impulsive side and the spade was ordered. I did email yesterday questioning about the handle. Here is the response I received from Seth this morning:
I use American ash on the long handles (American hickory on all short handles). All the handles I use are turned for me by small American companies in Arkansas and Tennessee. The tool head tang will sit around 4 inches into the handle and be hand riveted (through the ferrule, wood, and tang). Should you ever need to replace the handle, you’d grind off the rivet head and then knock it out. The rivet will leave a 3/16" hole that you could either use a nut and bolt through or a solid rivet (which usually comes with a handle).