Keeping the Blue Spruce Company

Now that my tree is bare, one of the interesting things to notice is how the tree trunk I could not see before has, over two decades, leaned outward, toward the southeast.  Interesting, but I'd still rather the tree was covered by its healthy branches.

My back garden is in dire need of weeding.  I charged the weed whacker yesterday, but that’s just what I use as a “lawn” trimmer, out front and back.  Today is not the day for weeding the back garden.  For today, I’ve done quite enough outdoor work on a 90-something-degree day.   

Yesterday I snipped some Swiss Chard and rinsed it in a little strainer.  I set it on the counter.  This morning the strainer and about 1/10 of the Swiss Chard leaves were on the floor.   What strange cats I have, eating all that Swiss Chard.  The three are lying around in today’s heat.  After working out front, my shorts were wet as well as dirty, so I just dropped them where I stood.  Chick promptly lay down on them and slept.

What I learned today:  Spruce roots are fairly shallow and spread wide.  That means it’s tough to find places where I can dig enough to plant two 6” pots of New Guinea impatiens.  Therefore, they’re staying in their pots.  The 3” pot I planted in the ground.  And I planted the somewhere-in-between pots of Bandana Lemon Zest Lantana.  The hydrangea is far enough off to dig a goodly hole in a spot that will get morning sun and later shade.  Small now, it’ll grow wide and tall in equal measure and give some shelter to my bedroom window.  My hydrangea out back are about 3 ½ feet wide and tall.

Stage 1: Hydrangea, New Guinea Impatiens, Lantana and little Artemesia

The little gray things are another story.  I see them all the time, and I like them, they’re visually interesting.  After searching on the internet for blue-gray frilly foliage, I am reasonably sure they’re artemesia.  I came back inside after planting in the noonday sun (I’m neither an Englishman nor a mad dog — I did, after all, come inside), I’m also reasonably sure I planted them too close together and too close to the front stoop. 

Stage 2: I don't like red mulch, so I went with dark stuff.  Unfortunately I just got 1 bag when I clearly need 3.

Next year….assuming as I am that the branches will not be growing back at all, and new growth will take years, next year I’ll get some pretty — and heavy — pots to ring around the tree with overflowing annuals.  The two hoses stretching to the front from out back may not be the best solution, but it’s all I’ve got.  Hey, maybe that slinky, creepy blue garden hose that’s curls up to a foot and then stretches out to 50…...ah, television commercials that look like the product can solve problems.  Will I never learn?

Back to those roots — and maybe next year I’ll do this — another option would be to set in a root barrier (might be a little corrugated metal fence, might be a ring of cobblestones set deep in the soil), since a little root-snipping and blocking wouldn’t hurt the tree.  It is, after all, over twenty years old.  The only thing that hurts it is when ignoramuses hack off branches.  They won’t grow back.  But there is new growth.  

~ Molly Matera, signing off to dream of a place where only people who love trees prune them.