A Tree Story: It's Planting Time

Last week after a loooong wait our trees finally arrived! We had our friends Jon and Heather come over to help with the process of getting the trees unwrapped and into the holes, then filling the holes and finishing the planting. It was an arduous process!

First step was getting the trees out of their packaging. Our big willow oak was container grown, meaning it needed some special attention. We dubbed Heather the "Root Liberator." It was her job to gently coax the roots, which had been growing around each other as they got to the edge of the container, out and to separate them so they could spread into the ground.

Ben helped:


I helped:


Scruffy supervised:

Time out for one more cute puppy picture:

Meanwhile Jon got to work on the cherry tree. The cherry tree had been "balled and burlapped" which means it was growing in the ground for a short time and then cut out and packaged up until we bought it. It was much easier to maneuver than the oak tree!


After the oak was successfully liberated, Jon and Ben manhandled it into it's waiting hole. It was very heavy.


Then we staked it so it would stay straight while we buried the roots and would grow nice and tall for its first year in the ground!

Cherry tree got the same treatment.

There she is! So happy in her new home!


It was a long and mildly difficult and expensive process, but so worth it! I can't wait to see these trees grow and branch out for as long as we live in our house, and to know that they'll be there for decades to come for the whole neighborhood to enjoy. If you have a yard and the space to do it, I would challenge YOU to plant a tree - what better time than Earth Day, which is coming up next Wednesday!