Trees and Yardstuffs

Last week, during vacation, Nate and I sat down at a coffeehouse and drafted up the Master Plan for the Backyard. I don't have it on me, but maybe we can scan it later.

The reason for this was that we vaguely wanted to go to Home Depot and buy something vaguely tree-like, but once we got the new baby peach and plum trees home, we had no idea where to put them. I was thinking sort of in the back? He was thinking sort of in the front? Both of us were totally open to the sides as well. You can see the problem here.

So we went the whole nine yards, getting a to-scale diagram of the yard ready to draw on. In true planning fashion, we listed out values, goals, and constraints... and then utterly ignored that list and drew trees, pergolas and koi ponds wherever we deemed fit on the page. There's a lot that isn't nailed down yet, but we did figure out that we'll have our row of fruit trees along the side, stretching back to the garden, and we were able to plant those first two yesterday.

It's been a verrry long time since I planted a tree (blah blah you make planet earth cry etc etc...), and I was rather taken aback by the pruning you're supposed to do. Apparently we coerce trees into growing through death threats. We'll see how these guys do... Planting trees is slightly frustrating since you know it's going to be years before you really get the payoff, but it's good stuff nonetheless.


AKC