Blog de Puree

Transplanting young trees can be a tricky business. There’s a relatively small window of nice weather in the spring when the trees haven’t quite come out of dormancy and when you’re not freezing your keester off while hacking away through inches upon inches of frozen ground. And a certain degree of finesse is needed so that you don’t beat the root system to hell and traumatize the tree when extracting it from the ground.

And just my luck, I often end up working in the rain as it tends to rain a lot during that peak window. Spring in New England. Go figure.

The other weekend, it was time to move a few young trees around the yard to their final homes according to our master plan and to make room for some new additions. The whole process took about two hours; about 45 minutes per tree.

The honey locust tree was moved from under the power lines on Currier Street because it grows too tall. It was transplanted along the back fence. The tulip magnolia tree was moved from the southeast corner of the yard to the spot where the honey locust tree was. Finally, the Japanese flowering cherry tree was moved from under the sugar maple in the front yard because it was growing unevenly from lack of sun. It now lives on the other side of the driveway and will get full sun.

But I’m not done yet. This week, four hemlock saplings arrived from the Arbor Day organization. This Saturday, those will be planted in the southwest corner of the yard for privacy, as a wind-break and to eventually block the light from the street lamp while I stargaze in the backyard. And wouldn’t you know it, it’s predicted to be a rainy day.

Finally, we have a ginkgo tree on the way, which will anchor our hide-away garden that we’ll be crafting in the southeast corner of the back yard. Ginkgo trees are also synonymous with bungalow homes, so we thought it fitting to have one in the yard. They are also indigenous to Asia, so we plan to have an Asian theme in the back yard. But the coolest thing about the ginkgo tree is that it’s a living fossil. It is the sole surviving species of a group of trees that flourished 270 million years to 65 million years ago during the Permian, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods when the dinosaurs existed. If that’s not a good reason to have a tree in one’s yard, I don’t know what is.

(The Ginkgo tree and it’s leaves)