When You Build Your House….
Plant your trees
Yes, this is an analogy post. But rooted (couldn’t help it) in my real life. It is incredible to me that so many people fail to plant their trees in life. Both real… and the other kind.
We finally moved into our new home two months ago. What’s the first thing you should always buy after new construction? Trees!!!!
Well ok, maybe you need appliances first. Definitely need window treatments if you have neighbors… or the potential for peepers. Maybe you need a couch to sit on. Or a table to eat at. Tho we are still waiting for our dining room furniture to be built and finally delivered in November. So, we are eating on our couches… with a begging golden retriever too close.
Priorities
But after appliances, window treatments and maybe some furniture… plant those trees! We were fortunate to have the above view to our west. And more trees to our east. But our northern view is the back of a blue house. Always a fan of the privacy trees deliver, I had eight trees immediately planted in our back yard.. and one in the front. Our builder planted 30+ bushes for us. But even without the boiler provided bushes… trees would have come first.
Fast growing trees still take time to become sizable. The sooner you plant them, the better. Make trees an early priority. How many years is that washing machine going to be around? How about that new couch? My Eastern White Pines should live 200 years… or more, sometimes much more. That washing machine may be a necessity, but it doesn’t bring joy. Trees do!
A Lasting Legacy
After I am long gone, the trees I have planted will live on. When I was twelve years old I captured my first real job… at a nursery planting trees across a small Iowa town. I could probably even find a few of them if I returned to that town for a visit. But there were a special two that I planted for my parents. My father loved pin oaks. I planted them in the backyard… 50 years ago. With a lifespan of 120 years, they still have lots of living to do yet.
I planted trees in all the houses we built over the years. Like a modest Johnny Appleseed. My masterpiece was our house in a suburb of St Louis. With a massive barren backyard just begging for trees. I installed a dozen hard and soft maples, a willow and a couple ornamentals. A year later and we were off to South Carolina. I never saw that house again until over twenty years had passed. My trees were astounding! And they should live another century or more.
How about bushes? With our very first house, I planted a 26 bush rose garden. It was beautiful. But I’m sure those bushed are gone now…with an average lifespan of 15 years.
One Last Time
I thought my tree planting days were over. But here I was again this year, planting more. And transplanting two existing “Charlie Brown fir trees” that had been inserted a few years ago by the builder along the property line… and never watered. Four of their brothers died and were pulled out. I’m hoping to bring these two back to life. Water shouldn’t be a problem here. But we have had a few unusually dry summers. And our massive subdivision is build on an ancient lakebed… all sand.
Will you water your “trees”?
Not enough to plant your trees… they will need watering!
So every two days, I have been watering for hours. Two hoses running full blast, pumping water into the ground. Eleven total trees… plus 30+ bushes. Our “maintenance free condo” experience comes with sprinklers… but only for the grass. Watering is lifesaving, for the trees and bushes. And peaceful for me and my golden retriever.
We finally were blessed with an inch or two of rain. Yay! I could stop watering for a few days. Big mistake. My trees told me on day four with needles and leaves turning yellow. When I stuck a moisture probe down it was desert dry. When you build on sand, you can never stop watering for at least a year.
It will be so worth it tho. Glorious trees!
Thoughts on “trees and bushes”
Watering and watering and watering and my mind wanders… the symbolic trees in my life. Marriage, four adult children now…trees that will last long after I am dust. Houses we have built…trees. The book I am still slowly writing… a tree that will last. Even if it is lost forever in the forests of others.
What about all the friends I have made along the way? Mostly bushes. Nice for a few years, but then we moved away. How long truly is the lasting impact? Not lost in memory, still remembered fondly. Perhaps I left a minor lasting mark on their lives… but still bushes.
What about all the businesses I worked in. A life’s sweat and blood in a corporate world. Ultimately short term success. Many of those businesses are now shuttered. Employees long gone. Bushes.
Plant your trees.
Life continuing on long after you are gone. And beautiful and growing in the now. What are your other trees? These other trees are just as important or more important. A family? Building a community? Teaching? Lasting art? Building a business that lasts?
Bushes are fun and enjoyable. But plant your trees.