I thought that was remarriage?
Yesterday we spent the afternoon digging a whole bunch of holes in the ground. Both M and Landlady have decided to plant more fruit trees.
To be fair, two of the three trees M planted last year are still alive. One is even growing. I’ll have to wait and see if I live long enough to taste fruit from them, though. We autopsied the one that died, and it does rather look as though we doomed it when we planted it. The roots were sort of growing in an ever-tightening spiral around the original ball. And you ought to see the humus developing under all that straw mulch! As M said, “My soil actually smells like soil! Not just pulverized rock.”
Long-time readers may recall that we did some fairly heavy-duty soil amendment before planting those trees. And whatever else we may or may not have accomplished thereby, those areas certainly hold moisture well. I wondered, frankly, if we hadn’t succeeded too well and maybe the moisture was damaging the roots. But the evidence doesn’t really support that.
Years ago Landlady and T planted trees, and for various reasons (cattle, elk, deer) most were killed right away. The ones that reluctantly survived never did anything but break our hearts. So we’re attempting, this time, to apply the lessons learned.
We also took a pilgrimage this morning to the home of some of our more distant neighbors, who have actually enjoyed some modest fruit-tree success.
Lesson one? An eight-foot fence.
I plant trees based on an article read a long time ago and have had better luck since. I do live in a less extreme environment, ymmv.
The basic premise is that mulching/adding humus, etc actually keeps the roots from being in contact with soil, and getting too much air. Not enough water. So plant them with no mulch, don’t cut up the soil unnecessarily, and make sure the soil is packed in around the root ball.
So my routine is to plant in the fall after dormancy, dig a hole no larger than the root ball, drop it in and cover it up. The fall and winter weather settle it in, and they have been taking off in year two like they never did before.