Planting Trees

Well, this weekend turned out to be the great tree planting. We planted three trees -- a Royal Burgundy cherry and two very large river birch. The rootballs on the two river birch weighed in the 300 and 500 pound ranges, which required some help from a neighbor to move.



My poor cart got two flat tires in the process.











Planting the cherry tree was a snap. I carted it around, picked it up, and stuck it in the hole.

Planting the two birch trees required 2 foot deep holes. In our area they were deep enough to have water seeping into them over night.

Placing the birch trees into the holes resulted in both of them falling over. We had to use long 2x4s and landscape timbers to wrestle them back into position. For the large tree this process took an hour. For the smaller one, it only took a few minutes.

In both cases we filled the holes in with alternating layers of the original soil and a mix of top soil, compost, and peat moss. Slight tamping with a 2x4 ensured good contact between the root ball and the new soil. It also got rid of any air pockets.








We finished up with watering and fertilizing. I'll be adding a heft layer of pine mulch after the next set of rain storms pass.












They don't look half bad.