Last summer a local outfit called TreeFolks sent a representative to talk to the neighborhood association about their NeighborWoods program, which encourages the planting of trees close to streets that will help shade the streets and reduce the Heat Island Effect. In aid of this, they give away sapling trees to residents in neighborhoods and in return, people who receive the trees agree to make sure they are watered on a five-day rotation for two to three years, until the tree is well-established. I thought it sounded like a fine idea, so when the speaker passed out “do you want to participate” forms, I filled one out. Remembering the Tree War, I asked for a medium-sized tree to avoid interfering with the power lines that cross my lot.
About two weeks ago, “my” tree showed up on the front porch: a two-year-old Mexican redbud sapling. Redbuds tend to top out at ten to fifteen feet here, although some Eastern varieties can grow as tall as forty feet if suitably watered. It sat around on our porch for several days while we debated just where to plant it. The tree was to be no closer than eight feet from the curb, at least five feet from power or water lines, or forty feet from the corner. On our lot, that ain’t happening. There is no available spot meeting all those requirements. In the end, we planted it as an understory beneath the black walnut on Avenue H, within the street and utility distances but only half the recommended distance from the corner. We inadvertently picked a good location for it, as I later discovered; redbuds like morning sun and afternoon shade, which it should get until it’s established, by which time we’ll probably have to have the walnut taken out anyhow.
This morning I set a root-watering spike in the yard and went away, leaving it to soak the clay soil into malleability, and just now L did the digging and setting. We left it again with the watering spike on it (which I’d better go turn off; it’s probably run long enough). I’ll have to find mulch and compost to put on it to keep all the water from going away so quickly.
The green pressure exerts a Henry upon the Western clock. Fnord.
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