Sunday, September 28, 2014

9-27: Neighborhood Beautification:AKA "Holes"

Neighborhood Beautification Project

Today the guys helped Jim dig holes. We told them it would turn them into good boys if they filled them up again, but they didn't get the reference. We are going to HAVE to watch "Holes"! It is a great movie anyway, and we quote from it a lot, actually, so now they will be in on the family jokes! :) We found a bunch of Lombardy poplar trees growing along the corn field, from some other poplars we planted along the development's lane about 10 years ago. SOOOO we thought we would transplant them before the harvester of the corn chewed them up. The guys transplanted about 15 of them. We are trying to get a tree-lined lane in the development, and trees are EXPENSIVE so we were pretty excited when we found these growing wild. They are shoots from the roots of our other trees. They grew along the cornfield because we keep the grass in the easement mowed. Pretty cool- we hope at least some of them live!
Jer wanted to know why we planted trees that were not fruit trees. Many reasons, my son, many reasons! 1. Fruit trees do not make a good windbreak; they are often fragile when loaded with fruit, and we have tremendous winds out here year round. 2. Fruit trees are very expensive, at at least $50 each, and the poplars are free. Also, we have planted several hundred trees around the development- you can do that math!!! Lots of these were free, but many were not. 3. Fruit trees are a lot of maintenance- you have to spray them many times a year, which is more expense and time that we don't have. 4. Fruit trees require other maintenance as well; Lombardy poplars require virtually none. 5. Lombardy poplars are fast growers, and fruit trees are not. Yes, we would love to have more fruit trees around, but they are not practical. Also, the poplars are planted on "communal property". If we planted fruit trees there, who would get the fruit? :)




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