Working in Winter

With warmer weather during Christmas break, I was able to plant a few trees and shrubs two days ago.

I started the day reading on the couch, but got myself up to meander through the yard.  I ended up visiting some of the trees that I've put in through the years.  This ended up motivating me more than I'd expected.   I finally built a cage out of fencing for a hemlock that I put in the ground quite a few years ago.  In the past two years, the deer finally found it, or got access to it, and trimmed it for me. :(  I finally caged it.  It should probably be two or three times bigger than it is now.

That was enough to get me started.   I also put in two red chokeberry (Aronia arbutifolia) that I bought in October (I bought three, but only got one in the ground at the time).

After this, I added a second hackberry tree to our woodland--this was given to me from our friend Beth who dug it out of her yard for me (it was a weed to her in their small city lot).  Thank you again, Beth.  :)

Lastly, I added a second silver maple (the stowaway in one of the home grown oak trees I bought at a yard sale).  I planted it within sight of our much larger silver maple that has made its presence known--and I am expecting it to shoot up and fill in nicely in the next few years (the new addition will be a younger version of the same...which will look more natural to me than two trees of the same age near each other).

 

I wanted to plant one of the oaks as well, but the soil in that pot was still mostly frozen.

All in all, not a bad day--and my back felt better being active.