(March 7) Yesterday I got plants together to plant, but got sidetracked to pulling wire/quackgrass roots from under the biggest (oldest) of our golden delicious apple trees. I was doing this so I could put manure fiber compost around the tree, then cardboard, then chips on top of that (when I get chips). Then I did some more planting by the big rhodie - two more small spireas - chartreuse and orange leaves respectively. (I think - the leaves are still just coming out.)
I also worked with potting and arranging potted plants. Then I was tired. I was DONE. So no tree planting.
Today, however, Rose and I (and Sassy! Rose's best friend) went up first thing. I had a tiny blooming rhodie in a pot that I have no idea where it came from; it's sat on our back stoop for 2 or more years. It had a carpet of Corsican mint in its pot, and four tiny seedling cedars. I took these all out carefully and potted them.
I had, also, another hazel. In its pot were two seedling cedars, one to one and a half feet tall. So, what I planted was one rhododendron, one hazel, and two cedars. These cedars may be Port Orford cedars, if the hazel came from J&H in Portland. They have P.O. cedars in their yard. (Another challenge for me - how to tell the western red and the P.O. cedars apart.
How to remember the differences. Incense cedar, too. And there are definitely 2 cedar species in our plantings - huge trees G planted years ago. Put identifying all these on my list of things to do.)
I put the rhodie in on the pond side of the tractor road, almost right on the corner between road and creek. Should be a place of prominence. A salal there from January planting, and I uncovered a small plant I can't identify - something of a small shrub. It might be the escaped and invasive cotoneaster, but I can't tell yet - it's not big enough. That cotoneaster, English laurel, holly, and the Himalayan and evergreen blackberries are our invasives here, in our woods. I occasionally find ivy - it is much worse an invasive plant than any of these others as it climbs trees - and strangles them eventually. We tolerate the blackberry vines that aren't competing with our trees - the fruit is so delicious!
The hazel went in up by the other one, close to goat pens but across an area of open grass (under the power lines) from the goats. There are two maples (vine? big leaf?) in cages up there, and my recent snowberries. I put compost around my rhodie and hazel, and around one maple.
I took the cedars further along east. One I put almost on the bank of the creek out of our spring, the other one just a ways west of that. Gently sloping hillside there. Both of these I caged with cages Gordon had freed up in the yard by building new, prettier ones out of sections of old picket fence - from the dump. The wooden cages are lovely - or will be as soon as plants are leafed out. We keep new trees caged until they're five or more feet tall. The deer will still eat the lower branches; this leads to shaping that is interesting and sometimes beautiful.
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