When Dee and I were kids, before kids, we got several shipments of trees from the VT conservation district. 50 Scotch Pines fit in a grocery bag! We cracked the soil with a shovel, put some water on them, some of them while she was pregnant with Thomas. Our road frontage was completely open then; now it looks like a forest out there and the last of the spruces are so tall they actually block the sun in December.
So, for our 40th “Family Birthday” we decided to try again. This time the Grafton County conservation association put out a flyer back in February with all sorts of goodies, including both conifers, berries, some bulbs and some scarlet oaks. I basically bought them out. Wrong move! They were quite mature, some 4-5 years old, each one required a real hole to be dug. A total of 112 plants, and only 3 holes did not require some kind of root chopping.
We put conifers in the “U” part of the driveway, across the marshy side, and along the road frontage where we planted the original scotch pines and then put the spruces in to fill in the gaps. The berries went in the driveway garden; the bulbs and hostas in the S.O.G garden; and the scarlet oaks along the back of the yearly mown field. More blue spruces went into the side woods to try to cover the old car; false indigo by the side lawn daffodils and witch hazel out by the scarlet oaks…with a few leftover spruces. The biggest spruce went on the lawn to be 40′ by the time the old one has seen its last days.
We doubt we’ll be here to see them grown up but it’ll be fun watching it again…and you never know.
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Tom's Walks 