New Spring Traditions
A.V. Walters–
Today was the big Spring Sale at our local Conservation District. We went, list in hand, and were able to secure almost everything on the list, 75 trees. Today, and maybe tomorrow, too, we’ll be busy planting. The trees are bare-root. That means that they ship, dormant, and naked. The best thing one can do for them is to get them into the ground as soon as possible. (Well, at least as soon as practicable, since I think we’ll eat breakfast first.) It was a nippy 23 degrees last night, so we’ll let the sun warm things up a bit first.
Some of these trees will be planted back in the forest. Once in, they will be pretty much on their own. I don’t know how we could water them on any regular basis, without carrying water with us in jugs (which we’ll be doing today.) The forest needs some filling in, and diversity, so we’ll be planting oaks (red and white), hemlock (for the north facing slopes), butternut and shagbark hickory.
Out front, in the low areas, we have red osier dogwood and flowering dogwood. We’ll be putting in two windbreak hedges of hazelnuts—that alone takes up a full third of the trees to be planted. We picked trees that provide diversity, flowers for the bees, wildlife habitat and some with nuts, for us. Of course, it’ll be years before any of these bear; at this point they are really just short sticks. It’s like planting pear trees—which are notoriously slow to reach production. (They say you plant pears for your heirs.) Mostly we’re planting for the land. I’ll be curious to see how they do.
It’s just a few days late for Earth Day. We’re thinking that this can become an annual tradition.
tworockchronicles 
I love that you do all this because it’s the right thing to do. You don’t say it’s ‘someone else’s job’. I get so tired of hearing good ideas followed by, ‘I wish *** would take care of that.’
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We are trying to live intentionally. Both Rick and I have had pasts in which we took a back seat to someone else’s ideas. Now, we have a renewed, and largely shared vision. A big part of it is doing what’s right, for the sake of it.
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That’s one of those lessons we try to teach children–Do the right thing, even when no one is watching. Now I’ll have a real-life example.
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Two days. Eighty-four trees. Each tree gets a post hole, a shovel of compost (mixed in to native soils), a root-dip in Terra-sorb slurry, a thorough watering and replacement of the leaf litter, natural mulch. That means we had to schlep the compost, water, slurry and trees back into the forest (Thank God, again, for the Kubota.) A ton of work, but we feel the planting went well and, provided the native soils are adequate to the tree type, we’ll see a good survival rate. The “closer-in” trees may get watered from time to time. The forest trees are on their own. We flagged each tree with surveyors’ tape, so we could find them again to keep track. Fingers crossed. I think our neighbors think we are crazy.
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‘And the third day, she rested…’
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Not so much. Today we start installing the posts for the front porch (and the roof.) Finally, the roof framing crew have said they have time, so we have to get the framework ready. Soon…. a roof!
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Wonderful! So hopeful. What a great tradition!
(Hate to keep bringing up California, but back here someone was debating whether it was good or bad to plant a tree for Earth Day, given our drought — someone suggested she plant a drought-resistant shrub.)
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I understand. Maybe a drought resistant tree? After all, down the road, trees provide shade, which is cooling, saves energy and lowers rates of precipitation. A baby tree can do with 2 gallons a week for the first year, especially if you put a “gator” on it. I’m sure you can find 2 gallons of gray water.
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Oops, I meant “lowers rates of evaporation.”
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We did an all-day planting session like that at the beginning. Now we try to add another tree or so every year.
I’m sure you know the old saying. The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is today.
I love to see the old abandoned homesteads here that have large slow-growing fruit and nut trees on the home site. Those people had vision.
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We figure it’s a question of the long term survival of the forest. Losing the ash trees has really commanded our attention. There’s a beech blight out there, and, in Ohio, bug threatening maples. We have a Maple-Beech-Ash forest. It’s diversity or die.
I too love the old farmsteads that provided for shade and a dooryard orchard. What is wrong with modern culture? I understand from our nurseryman that a great many folks with “gentleman’s estates” come in and want a fruit tree, (often one for each type of fruit) with no understanding that, if you actually want fruit, you need pollination. Hey, even Noah knew you needed two.
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