Jenny Appleseed

You already know all about our posts and planned apple tree fence. Well, we are one step closer to being done. Last week, the apple trees arrived.

Let me back up a minute. A few days after we got all the posts in, Bert and I took a drive to a local garden center that was having some super-deep discounts on perennials. That combined with a coupon made outfitting our fence row with some color very affordable. We picked out about a dozen or so various plants: a combination of day lilies, coneflowers, daisy-like flowers, sedum, and a few other things I can't remember the names of now. Keith told me to put the plants where I wanted them so I staggered them here and there, leaving spaces for the trees we were still waiting on. He dug holes and planted them. Bert and I kept him company for awhile since it was a mild evening (this was early in October) but we headed in as it got dark and the mosquitos (yes, mosquitos) came out, leaving Keith to get eaten alive. He also moved a rose that we have been nursing for two years from a slip my grandmother started off her rosebush next to the post closest to the house.

Being the helpful and forward thinking guy that he is, Keith went ahead and dug the holes for the trees so planting them would be quick work. He also brought home a load of mulch to spread around our fence row. So when this big box arrived last week, I was ready to plop our trees in the ground.

The instructions that came with the trees recommended soaking the roots in water for a few hours before planting, so I plunked them in a bucket immediately.

Then, when Bert went down for his nap, I headed outside. He was still fussing when I went out but we are working on getting him to go to sleep on his own. Fifteen minutes later when I checked on him, he was out. That fifteen minutes sure goes a lot quicker when you aren't inside listening to the crying.

Anyway, I had to dig out the holes to make them a bit bigger. The booklet says, "Old-time gardeners say you need a ten-dollar hole for a five-dollar tree." I'm no expert but I think that means to give those roots some room. So the trees are in their ten-dollar holes with some good top soil filled in around them. The other suggestion was that the dirt should be banked so that water would run away from the trunk, not pool and freeze. There was also a lot of mumbo-jumbo about pH balanced soil and such that I skipped over, so here's hoping that they are healthy and happy in the ground and survive the winter. I think they'll be ok because we've been told that the previous owners used to have a number of fruit trees in the yard that did quite well.

All that has to be done yet is to string wire along the post to train the branches on as the trees go and to plant two mums that our neighbor gave us after taking down her fall decorations. Hopefully we will have wonderful pictures of tiny leaves on our trees to share in the spring!