Wednesday, May 14, 2008

My tree nursery

For several years I have been saving tree seedlings that pop up in my garden courtesy of friendly birds. Some have gotten rather big. Each summer it is a lot of work to keep them alive. Since they're in pots they must be watered faithfully. We have no outdoor water source in our condo so we must use pitchers. Another problem is that I'm running out of space and pots (and dirt!).

A while back I joined a local yahoo Freecycle group and I've been posting household items on it. Yesterday I decided to post bedding plants which are offshoots of my own perennials. Then I decided to post my trees.

Today, a woman took one of my oldest trees, a hackberry. It has survived so many summers and was such a pretty tree; I had trimmed it to look like trees in Japanese paintings. She also took a black locust which was about as old.

I'll miss them but now they will be able to grow freely.

This is a shot of my tree nursey right before she picked them up. The hackberry is at the left; the locust is sort of lost in the other trees at the right. Other trees include more hackberries, oaks, maples, river birches, elms, honey locusts and a black walnut. All courtesy of birds and squirrels.

This was a farewell party, I guess.

I will grow vegetables in the space they and the others occupied.