There's a saying that the best time to plant a tree is 10 years ago and the second best time is today. I moved into my house 11 years ago and have meant every spring to plant a tree in front. This is the year it got done. I originally was going to make it a boulevard tree - mostly to make mowing the front yard easier - however, the city where I live is currently experiencing some controversy over boulevard trees and who can plant them and what species the tree needs to be. This discussion is not something that I wanted to be come involved in, so I decided to just put a tree into my front yard instead.
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| Waiting for planting |
I did lots of thinking about what type of tree I wanted. I cut ornamental flowering trees and fruit trees out of the list fairly quickly. I don't want to deal with picking fruit at exactly the right time, having other people enter my yard to pick fruit because I haven't had time to pick it yet, having squishy fruit on the ground, or dealing with people coming along and cutting flowering branches off a tree that I don't want pruned. (I've dealt with all of these situations in the past - not fun!) Then next "category" to go were trees that are common in this area. While I love them, I can see them walking around town or going out to a friend's house. I also decided that I wanted a TREE - meaning a large shade tree, not a quick-growing windbreak tree or an oversized shrub. After much thought, I decided on a bur oak - a tree that I associate with some good memories. Though they aren't common in my area of the world, they will grow here, are highly drought-tolerant, and meet all of my qualities mentioned above.
Yesterday, I was visiting my parents' farm, and, late in the afternoon, my dad and I went out to dig a tiny oak that he had found in the old cow pasture. I didn't take photos of that part of the tree-planting process, but I want to mention that it was surrounded by violets (one of my favorite spring flowers), so I'm hoping I might get the bonus of some volunteer violets next spring. This tree could well be the child or grandchild of an oak that I remember growing about 50 feet away when I was little. That old tree was the site of quite a bit of play time for me growing up - one of the limbs was near the ground and it had a little niche that I used to store my acorn "tea cups" in.
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| Starting to dig |
Today, I dug the hole in my front yard for my little tree's new home. It's in the ground, and I'm hoping for the best. It looks so tiny right now, but I can squint and imagine that in 50 years it will be providing shade, homes for birds and squirrels, and acorn teacups for some other child to find on the sidewalk.
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| One tree against the dandelions! |
