Great Hope

Earlier this year I ordered six fruit and nut trees from the Arbor Day Foundation. You pay to become a member and then you get a discount on live trees...and they come by post!

They are bare root trees, which I read are less hearty than burlap root balled trees or container grown trees. No matter, they arrived on Saturday in a triangular cardboard mailer: 2 pecans, 2 kieffer pears, 1 plum, 1 redbud, and two free forsythia shrub (i.e. branches). We've had a large pecan sapling (~5' tall) leftover from the Tour de Plants and I decided I would plant it in a large newly established median space between 5th and 4th Ave.

The Tennessee Dept. of Transportation has just this summer finished a large interstate overhaul called SmartFix-40. In it's wake, the interstate on ramps are safer, we have noise barrier walls, and there are several recently disturbed areas passing through succession. TDOT planted several trees (magnolias, dogwood, etc.) but they must be heavily fertilized as the surrounding soil is junk. It's mostly clay and full of rocks: no good for young trees and nearly impossible to dig a deep enough hole for my pecan tree.

So instead, I planted the small and sad little bare root pecans from the Arbor Day Foundation. I mixed some of my compost into the clay and surrounded each tree with leaf mulch (also left over from the bike ride). Now I wait.

And wait. And wait. I will return to check on their progress in a couple weeks. The plane in which they are planted has a strong slope and I fell asleep last night dreaming of terraces, sedums, and paths. Maybe after I get my Masters in Landscape Architecture. Ha.

Here is the one of the trees on site.