Planting Trees (back to my roots?)
Hopefully within the next couple of weeks, provided I didn’t get taken by the website, I will be getting a couple bags of seeds. Japanese maples. No, I didn’t order them because of the word “Japanese” in the name, but because the Japanese Maple is one of the most beautiful trees I’ve ever seen. The leaves always yellow, orange, red, or purple, and very small.
But planting trees goes way back in my history. From when I was about six until eleven years old my father would bring home our Christmas tree from the forest he worked in. But it wasn’t cut down, it still had the roots. He would actually take the time to dig up a small fir tree, wrap its roots, and bring it home. We would then line a cardboard box with plastic, fill it with dirt, and “plant” the tree in our living room. Once Christmas was over, we took the tree outside and planted it in our yard. I haven’t seen any of the trees we planted during that time, but I’ve been told they have grown into full sized trees. Given that the harvest cycle for a managed forest is every 30 years, I can imagine how big they are. The planting didn’t stop on my eleventh Christmas though.
Growing up, I spent a lot of time in the forests around my hometown, and I don’t know when it started, but I began bringing home pine and douglas fir saplings. I would plant them around the borders of the yard I lived in. Either while I was out woodcutting with my father, or eventually on my own, I would find a sapling that was about 12″ tall, dig it up, then plant it next along in a row starting at my mailbox working my way around the yard and up the side of the driveway. I must have planted around 25 trees.
When left to join the real world the tallest of the bunch was an eight foot tall fir. They got progressively smaller as you worked your way to the last tree I planted there which had grown to a gigantic three feet.
The last time I was in my hometown I didn’t go to see my old house, but to see how the trees had grown. I was amazed to see the tallest at about fifteen feet. And they all still had an order of size about them down to the smallest and last, though it escapes me now how small the smallest was. They have grown large enough to be seen on Google’s satellite map. I’m oddly proud of that. I can look at the picture and say “See those trees? I planted those!”
I haven’t planted any trees since then. I think it’s time to start again. I’m going to try my hand at Japanese Maples.
April 8th, 2007 at 10:38 pm
[…] In this post I mentioned about planting trees. Well, the seeds I mentioned ordering never arrived. I emailed the website, but they said they mailed them. No real loss. Only about $15. But rather than try again, My girlfriend and I picked up a beautiful seven foot tall red and yellow Japanese Maple. It blooms in spring a fiery yellow and red. It turns green throughout the summer then turns orange in the fall. At left is a small picture of it. […]