Early on in the pandemic, after settling into working from home, we made the decision to have a line of trees in front of our house removed. While we love trees, these were just a few too many for our liking, and they also presented a possible risk during hurricane season. Also there were just, like, a lot of them.
But we knew that we didn’t just want to get rid of the trees entirely — we also wanted to plant something new in their place. We eventually settled on 2 trees, but they would be a bit shorter, more decorative, and preferably fruiting.
For a long while, we thought we were going to get Hall’s Hardy Almond trees. After all, almonds are the only nut that our allergic children can eat. But a little more research put a kink in that plan. Apparently those kinds of almonds are only nominally edible, In fact, they may even be deadly. (Look up Steve McQueen. Long story.)
Buying trees that produce almonds which we would have to somehow convince our kids not to eat even though they’re actually not allergic sounded like pretty much the worst idea ever, so we changed course and ended up with cherry trees.
Although we had hoped to get the old trees removed and the new ones planted all in one season, we failed to anticipate the massive mountain of wood chips that was left behind. Digging and raking through the wood chips to create an even, plantable surface ended up taking about a year of on-and-off yard work in itself. Even with the pandemic largely keeping us homebound, it’s amazing how hard it is to find the time.
But this month, after finally managing to find the soil and dig 2 big holes, we purchased and received 2 Stella cherry trees by mail.
Of course, they didn’t necessarily arrive at the most convenient time. We were both at work. And I needed to purchase a few tree accessories at the last minute.
Hence, I ended up planting cherry trees in the dark.
So far, we think they’re doing well, but it will be hard to know for at least a few months. But even though it took about a year longer than we expected to get them in the ground, and even though it didn’t exactly feel triumphant when I was standing there, barely lit by street lights, unable to really see what they looked like… I do believe it will be worth it.
