Arbor Day (Week) at My House

[GrannyNanny]

This week has been the Week of the Crabapples. First I bought two, about 8 ft tall each, on sale for half price: one is pink, cultivar name Robinson; the other is red, cultivar name Profusion. I planted one on the east side of our house, in what has been the veggie garden this year but which will NOT be used for that purpose next year. (Too many rabbits, and too little sun.) I intended to plant the other one in the back yard, halfway between the corner of the deck and the edge of the grass, but when my grandson tried to dig a hole there, we discovered that when the builders leveled the lot they used fill composed of about 80% small rocks and 20% dirt! It was so hard to dig that I began to think that maybe a tree shouldn't go there, and after we tried to soften it up by hosing water into it and came back a half hour later with the water still THERE, I knew it was no place to plant anything. Supposing that we could have dug a hole, it would have been like trying to grow a tree in a large pot with no drainage holes!!! Finally decided to put it in the front yard, toward the east side of the lot. I had wanted that tree in the back yard so we could see it from the deck and the kitchen windows, but I had been cheated by the rock pile, so I decided to go back to see if they had any more of those trees, and if they had, to put them on my slope below the boulder retaining wall, were we CAN see them from the deck and window. My wonderful grandson came over Wednesday to dig more holes, and today I did the planting. I'm attaching pics of all four -- not that they look any different from each other, but this way you can see where they are planted. Phyllis
PS -- the ones on the slope are both the pink Robinson crabapples -- they were out of the red when I went back.

[viktoria]

Now hold your breath 'til next spring when, you hope, they will all bloom

Viktoria, back from PEI

[GrannyNanny]

Yes, I will be holding my breath to see if they GROW, and then if they bloom! They seem to be none the worse for their long residence in pots, and to be OK in the ground, now that they are there. Be sure I will get pics in the spring.