Planting Trees

Now I am truly home here. I planted trees.

Three trees: a leafy Japanese maple, a sturdy looking Persian ironwood, and that bare stick on the right is (was?) an Oklahoma redbud, but the leaves and the trunk were shipped separately.

At least that's how it came -- all of its leaves had fallen off and were piled in a dry heap in the bottom of the box. I took the bare stem and pot out, and then dumped out all the leaves and debated how to get them back on the tree.

I'm hoping the roots are good, and it's just in premature dormancy. I planted it by the garage and will hope for the best.

It's Cercis canadensis var. texensis (used to be reniformis) and it looked like this in full magenta flower in my Connecticut garden before I lost it one year to an ice storm:

It's a western version of an eastern redbud, with glossier leaves and the ability to survive tough soils and dry conditions. It's a popular flowering tree here.

The Persian ironwood is also a tree I had in my former garden that is quite tough and native to high altitudes, although not necessarily very dry conditions. It's a Parrotia persica 'Vanessa', which is a tightly narrow, upright tree.

I needed something very skinny to plant in the narrow strip on the west side of the house.

(If Deanne is reading this, please note: that is not a snake in the corner. Not a snake. It's the garden hose, coiled up. Deanne, you can continue reading now. . . )

The area on this side of the house is only a few feet wide, and it's on two levels, surrounded by a fence to separate us from the neighbor. There is a young aspen tree on the lower level already.

Even when it is taller and up over the fence, the aspen won't shield the view from our guest room window on this side of the house. The guest room looks out at the neighbor, and I needed something to screen the view.

We have a full window shade for this window now, but this room is dark, and even with the shade only half drawn so the neighbor's windows aren't visible, the view of an empty corner of the fence wasn't great.

So the little 'Vanessa' ironwood was planted right outside the window for interest and for privacy. It's too close to the house as all my plantings always are, but it will stay quite narrow as it grows tall enough to screen the house next door.

The opposite end of this long side alley is where the potting bench is, nestled up against another neighbor's garage wall. That's how close everything is here, but the siting and courtyards and fences make it all private.

My tools are in the plastic storage closet in the middle of the alley, and the plastic compost bin left by the former owners is there too. I'm pretending the Virginia Creeper surrounding them make them look less utilitarian and more garden-esque, but they are what they are. You can't see them from the back courtyard or deck, you have to go around the corner, and the neighbors can't see them over the fence.

The last of the three trees I planted went into a pot in the front of the house. This is Acer palmatum 'Seiryu', another plant I grew in Connecticut. It's the only upright dissected Japanese maple (all dissected leaf Japanese maples are weepers and mounders).

It's going to be too big for the pot, but I'll let it get established and then repot in a year or two.

I think Japanese maples may struggle in the sandy, dry soils here, so this one will stay potted and well watered. It gets afternoon shade from the cottonwood nearby. It develops beautiful scarlet fall color, and I'll be interested to see if that happens in this climate.

I put it in the circle of chamisa shrubs and cactus -- a remarkably odd combination. I may move it, but I need to find somewhere with afternoon shade for its delicate leaves.

I still have much to do next spring to plant some perennials and shrubs. But for now, I have trees in the ground and it's good.