June 15: Tree for Two
Our blue spruce is a magnificent 40-foot tree, 20 feet in diameter, the hands-down focal point of our Winterset back yard. So many species of bird reside in its branches my husband Mark and I call it The Apartment.
Landscaping around our dilapidated cottage in Wisconsin is fairly non-existant. Recently-trained Iowa State University Master Gardeners, Mark and I entertain ourselves frequently by considering the planting possibilties near the house, in the yard, and along the path to the lake. As rennovations on the house continue, we dream of flowers, shrubs, and trees.
On the west side of the cottage, a gravel driveway circles an unkempt, circular bed, enabling drivers to get in and out of the property without backing up. Whatever we plant at the center of this roomy, currently grass-and-weed-filled circle will be an instantly important greeter of visitors to our vacation home.
In a planning frame of mind we ask ourselves, "Flagpole?" "Cherry tree?" "Blue spruce?"
The Winterset spruce went in the ground on Father's Day almost twenty years ago. The little evergreen was shorter than my own waist; I dug the hole, watered the tree, and watched it grow. Eight or nine years later, to make room for an addition on the west side of the house, a professional tree mover relocated my tree, still under ten feet tall, to the back yard. After Mark and I married, the tree was moved ten feet further north to allow space for a garage.
"You can never move it again," commented Mr. Harvey as he climbed back on his tractor.
Mark and I admire The Apartment from the back yard deck, amazed that so large a living thing was ever small, that it ever could have been moved. Gradually, the lawn around the tree has shrunk; a pathway just wide enough for the lawnmower now remains between the tree's lower branches and the deck's edge.
"I've got it," I said to Mark one day. "If we plant a blue spruce just like this one, there will be lots of room around it for perinneals and annuals. By the time we get too old to weed the flower bed, the tree will have taken up the entire space."
Today's Fortune Cookie Fortune:
You will do long-range planning.
Marianne Fons
2 Comments
Reader Comments (2)
Hooray! A new blog from Ma!
I love the mental image you create here. The WiWi house welcoming visitors with a cheery driveway. I cannot wait for years and years of that welcome!
I just discovered this blog last night and paged all the way to the first entry so I could start at the beginning and end up here, where I started. This, your latest entry, brought back memories. The little yard at the tiny house I lived in until I was 7 now has a huge spruce dwarfing the house and taking up what seems like a fourth of the yard. It's been fun to go back from time to time and see that tree take over.