It is a rainy day down on the farmette. Good thing we got some of our trees in yesterday. It was arbor day for us. We went to the sale at Sulphur Springs Conservation Area and got a bit carried away. We bought ten white birch, ten cedars, ten larch, 3 sumacs and 3 highbush cranberries. All for about $40 because they were just wee tiny saplings - sticks with roots really.
So we put the white birch in clumps around the front lawn because they like the sun, but not too much because their roots grow so close to the surface. The north side of the house gets the morning sun and has maple trees to help shelter from the potentially burning days of summer.
One day, their lovely white bark and dappled shade will be a sight to behold. They may even offset the pile of junk - rusting cars, broken down trailers and various bits of inactive equipment - accumulating at our neighbour’s property across the road.
The sumac went in a row at the side of the mini-orchard beside the woodworking shop. We can picture putting a picnic table there under the fronds…in about 10 or so years. Rob also talks fondly of his mother’s sumac jelly made from the browny-red velvet thingies (technical term) they produce in the fall. So there’s that to look forward to.
The highbush cranberries went behind the garage where I’ve been able to grow NOTHING ELSE. I’ve tried lavender and hydrangea, and the ground is just way too gravelly - so it’s been dead plants in the spring time for past two years. The arborist at the sale said she had a heck of a time digging out a stony spot for a customer, but the cranberries thrived. Here’s hoping.
We still have the cedars and larch to go. Thinking about a nice, fragrant hedge just outside the barn for the cedars and a lovely row of larch trees down the fence line in the back pasture.
We had a lot of fun, even though today the creaky muscles are making themselves known. The one who had the most fun, though, was definitely Hobbes, who thought the big paper bag we brought our green treasures home in was just the perfect setting for a mid-afternoon snooze.
In the end, it’s a fine thing to think that, if we take good care of our new trees and bushes, they will be feeding and sheltering feathered visitors and towering over the next generations long after we’re gone.