Our Freebie Treebie Has Landed

I sure do like when things happen ahead of schedule. It’s the kind of thing I’ve learned to not hold people to, especially after lengthy ordeals like getting my first time homebuyer tax credit (10.5 months) or my deck permit (2 months) or my new West Elm bath mat (on backorder for another month still). I certainly didn’t expect this whole “give me a free tree, now” thing to actually happen in a timely fashion, I even joked that maybe it would be planted before we decided to sell and move on (something that’s not even yet on the radar). But low and behold, the awesome Forestry Department might be getting a big tray of my specialty oatmeal-choco-chip cookies from this girl, who happily received a spectacular new Autumn Flowering Cherry tree at the end of last week, exactly 3 days ahead of the calendar schedule.

We knew when we came back from Arizona that things had been a-happenin’ at home. My family had been house-slash-dog sitting, so I got the full report that the city had been by to mark off all underground lines and flag the part of the front curb so that the new tree that I wrote about a few weeks ago could be planted in a safe zone.

The spraypainted map that the city spray painted on every possible surface was actually really interesting. I’m sure that if it’s anything like the temporary paint that a driveway company once spritzed on the asphalt, it’ll be there for 2 years, no big deal.

I snapped a photo from an upstairs window to keep memory of those water, sewage, and gas lines while they were so clearly marked. The green “X” on the street has been there awhile and is totally unrelated to the utilities; it’s just flagging a sinkhole that cars still bottom out on (translate: nightly entertainment). Let’s hope that the DOT corrects the roads in this neighborhood with 1/5 of the expeditiousness of the forestry department.

Anyways, yes. We have a new baby tree. Actually, it was a lot bigger than I expected when it arrived, more like a teenager tree, ready for the planting, all for free.

The Forestry Department relies on a stump grinder to create the holes in the ground for planting; it looks toothy and crude, like something out of the third underwater level in Donkey Kong, but it actually did a really great job of eating through old tree roots that were in the ground and kept things neater than, say, a backhoe.

They claimed to have a schedule requiring them to plant about 15 trees/day, so I suppose it’s good that they have this system down pat. The whole process, from arrival to when they drove away took 15 minutes.

It’s a real-life new tree, and it’s covered in buds already!

Let there be many, many leaves this spring. As an Autumn Flowering Cherry tree, we can expect it to begin blooming as early as next year (although sometimes it takes a little longer for plants to adjust to such a transplant). Here’s to hoping it roots solidly and takes off on its own.

Side note: Here’s a good springtime shot of the newly extended grassy front yard. Can you tell where the mature grass stops and the new grass ends? It’s almost undetectable, but I’ve been meaning to toss a little more seed down for good measure now that the weather’s nice.

As for those plants in the background? They’ve got some catching up to do.