Tree Planting Day

Happy Earth Day!

Jaymz, Daniel, and I spent this morning outside together working in the garden and yard: re-potting plants, planting vegetables and flowers, and enjoying the sunny day. I didn't take any photographs since my hands were muddy, but in honor of Earth Day, I'm sharing the story of our tree planting day!

Last spring, I got in touch with Friends of Trees to order trees for our new home. Friends of Trees is a wonderful organization that provides yard and street trees at discounted prices to families in the Portland-Vancouver, and Eugene-Springfield areas. The planting weekend for our neighborhood is in January, so we had to wait almost a full year to get the trees from the time I started planning for them, but it was definitely worth the wait!

On planting day, teams of volunteers from the neighborhood (folks who are also getting trees planted at their homes that day, for the most part) drive around to homes and plant trees throughout the morning. When they're all finished, there's hot lunch served at a local church. I ordered five trees to be planted this year: three for the strip of grass between the sidewalk and street, a native cedar for the front yard, and an apple tree for the back yard.

I took this photo for my mom. ♥
She used to carry me in her coat just like this!

One of the trees (the cedar) was delivered the day before, and one of the trees (the apple) came about six weeks later. We were all very excited when we saw the truck pull up with our trees loaded in the back, so we went outside to talk and lend a hand while our trees were being planted. (I had opted to make a huge pot of potato leek soup to donate to the meal as my main act of volunteering for the day.)

It was a cold and drizzly day (as January days tend to be here), and our new trees were the last ones this team was planting for the day. I really appreciated the care the team took with planting our trees: making sure they were standing up straight, considering how the branches of each tree would likely grow when choosing which side to face toward the street, teaching us about the trees and how best to care for each of them as they grow. It was really a wonderful experience all around.

Here are some more photographs from our tree planting experience:

A different volunteer team came by earlier in the week
to dig holes in the spots I had marked with tiny flags.

The cedar tree arrived on our lawn the day before planting day.

Getting started

Almost finished with the side trees!

Finishing up in the front yard

Our apple tree was planted while I was out of
the house one morning. What a lovely surprise!

The tiny apple blossoms on this pint-sized tree are my favorite!

Did you celebrate Earth Day today? Have you planted anything new lately? I'd love to hear all about it!