The Best Time To Plant A Tree Was 20 Years Ago

The second best time is now.

I hadn't thought to post any progress photos on our front yard landscaping project till next spring. However, my overzealousness has gotten the better of me, and while Mike slept off the fatigue of a 3rd shift job on Monday, Charlotte and I went out and bought a tree.....a lovely Heritage River Birch.......a rather mature one, as a matter of fact. It was 50% off, and I couldn't pass up a deal like that! And for those interested, I've been busy since my last post working on a design plan. I created some graph paper in Excel so that when I took measurements of the front of the house, side walk, window placement, water and sewage lines, et al, I could plot it all out on my graph paper (and in my humor, I used blue for the water line and brown for the sewage line, heheh). Then I cut out little pieces of paper that represented the tree and various plants so I could move them around and see what would go where. I suppose some people might call that OCD, but I prefer detail-oriented.

The tree was delivered around noon Friday, but because our neighbors have jobs, we weren't able to install till they got home from work. I suspect they'll be a bit scarce as our landscaping project continues, since that was one heeeeeeavy tree.....and then there was me saying, "Uh a little counter-clockwise....no, too much, back the other way....." Hey, ya get one chance to plant it right, know what I mean? Anyway, here's a photo of our newly installed tree:


To see what the yard looked like before, click here.

Please note the blue flags - that's the water line cutting diagonally across our yard and enters the house in between the windows....and the sewage enters right next to it. We're really unsure where the sewage cuts across the lawn, and so is the Village since apparently 20 years ago they didn't keep records of such unimportant things like where a person's sewage line runs [eye roll]. We had to guess that they might employ some intelligence and not cut it across the water line but would run it parallel to it, so this really limited our choices on where to put this tree and still have it add to the "curb appeal" of the house and offer some shade on OUR lawn and not our neighbor's driveway. So in case you were wondering on the placement of the tree, we really did our homework and think it's in the best spot, considering. If the water and sewage hadn't been installed in a totally stupid way, we would've moved the tree over towards the center and away from the house a bit. We cut it pretty close to the water/sewage lines as it was.

Anyway, here's another photo of some spray paint (yes, the spray-painted line is on my graph paper.) This is the area that will be landscaped with a few shrubs and many perennials; most of them need to be shade loving. Any dirt outside of the white spray paint will be planted with grass, and will create a nice, easy line for Mike to mow(ya gotta think about these things!) We haven't decided how to define the area (big rocks, retaining wall, etc.) I'm sure price will be a huge factor in our decision. And Mike wants to do away with the split rail fence later this fall. This was my Mother's Day present back in 2003 (?), so I'm kind of reluctant to see it go, but Mike assures me it'll look better without it. I have my doubts.

"He who plants a tree plants hope."
~ Lucy Larcom