Ah, it’s so much fun returning to a site and noticing what went well after a few seasons. I often feel responsible for site plants the way I do with my own kids. And I think it’s important to celebrate the small victories. Let’s take a look at three from a site I hadn’t been to for a long time.
Storm damaged Magnolia
This Magnolia grandiflora looks completely normal but a few seasons ago it lost its leader in a storm. So, I had no choice but to remove the broken leader and hope that the tree recovers.
Of course, trees are resilient. This Magnolia seems to be doing just fine without its leader. Assuming no diseases entered the tree through the large cut, I don’t see why this Magnolia shouldn’t outlive me.
Bare root maple
This is a very special rescue Japanese maple (Acer palmatum). The owner had it planted in a large pot full of fluffy potting mix. The tree didn’t care for the potting mix and so the roots went down and penetrated into the lawn.
Now the lady wanted me to plant it in her lawn. And as soon as I freed the maple from the potting mix, I was holding a bare root tree ready for planting!
So, this maple became my very first solo bare root planting project; by accident.
Because the lawn gets mowed weekly, I had to create a small tree well to protect it from merciless lawn care machines.
Wiggle test
Last week I gently grabbed the main stem and gave it the wiggle test. And it held up nicely! You know the tree isn’t established
when you move the main stem and the root ball moves. In this case, the root ball held nicely which means that the tree is getting established.
I watered it with a slow soak and photographed it for this blog post. I desperately want this tree to thrive.
Snow damaged Escallonia
Again, this Escallonia looks perfectly normal but a few seasons ago it suffered snow damage. More than half of the hedge was brown and broken; and some people started panicking. Let’s remove the damaged reject.
Not so fast! I power sheared it ruthlessly and hand snipped the rest so it was less than half of its original size. Now look at it; you can’t tell. And that’s worth celebrating.
It may take several seasons for your landscape plants to recover from negative events and when you notice it, celebrate it like I do.
