Putting Down Roots

This is my husband’s redbud tree.  We both enjoy the effusion of flowers in the spring and the lush, green, heart shaped leaves in the summer.  It lives in the front of our yard near the road and drive way.  It is a focal point for lots of folks in the neighborhood because it is such a beautiful tree and -because it didn’t always used to reside in it’s current home.

 

“Okay just shove it from that end….I think we have it…” I hear my friend and neighbor from across the street as she shouts through a mass of twigs and leaves. “There!” With a grown and the crunching sounds of breaking plastic as the window knob pops off the door of my car, a medium sized red bud tree – meaning 6ft tall with accompanying dirt ball has just landed with a plop in the street in front of my house. Now what? Total weight is probably 300 lbs. This tree arrived here after a two hour commute in my hatch back compact car. What on earth am I doing you ask? I have been known to ask myself those very same questions. My significant other and I have decided to set up housekeeping. I know this is crazy talk. We     have both been married before and both of our previous spouses found each of us some how lacking. We both got dumped -not to put to fine a point on it. We are both college educated and we have both taken stats. classes. We know the failure rates on second marriages. So what I am I doing standing in the middle of the street with 300 + pounds of dirt and tree in front of my house? I am moving my significant other’s tree from his house in Traverse City to my/ now our house in Cedar Springs. When he told me he wanted to put down roots he wasn’t kidding. We have already moved 4 Canadian shrub rose bushes and the accompanying 8 ft tall garden arch they grow on, a 2 ft tall mock orange bush, and assorted hostas, daylilies, lily and tulip bulbs. Now for the piece de resistance in this botanical migration– his beloved red bud tree.   I have to say a red bud is a spectacular deciduous specimen. They are also expensive to purchase and I do not have one in the current landscaping. The significant other and I are both avid gardeners. I also have to say this undertaking was my idea. When getting ready to put his house up for sale he was lamenting the loss of this tree he had worked so hard to foster. I said “ Lets move it.” He looked at me like I was crazy for a moment –this is a standard response from lots of folks by the way  not just my husband-then he smiled and said “let’s try it!” He and I dug the tree out with an ample amount of dirt in hopes of not disturbing the roots any more than necessary. The two of us heaved the tree on to a tarp. We wrapped the tarp around the root ball. We backed my hatch back car up to the tree. We dropped the back seat, he then, with help from me, lifted the root ball up and dropped it in to the hatch. We shoved and pushed until the root ball dropped on to the floor in front of the back seat of the car with a sink of the tires. We bungeed the hatch shut and then my dearly beloved had to go to work. He was still working 2^nd shift at the hospital in TC. So off I headed with very explicit instructions to get help from LOTS of the neighbors in the attempt at tree disembarkation. I arrived home with plenty of day light to complete this task. I chose a spot in the front yard near the curb, dug a substantial hole, prepped it with compost, and then headed to the neighbors across the street for some assistance. The Mrs. of said couple said the Mr. was not home but she would help me. She thought the two of us could handle it-famous last words. Now the branches of a tree grow in a specific direction- up towards the sun. When we put the tree in my car the branches collapsed against the trunk relatively nicely. To take the tree out the same way it came in my friend and I would have the branches working against us. We decided to come out the back side door instead and we would have gravity helping us right? Problem the root ball is rather firmly wedged in the back seat well. This direction of removal also means the tree has to make a bit of a turn to come out the door. My friend and I pushed and pulled- pulled and pushed. We heaved and shoved providing every car going down our street a nice view of our tushes as we bent and strained. We even got a few honks. I am not sure if they were in appreciation or encouragement but at any rate after a bit of a struggle the root ball landed with a plop on to the street taking my passenger window roller off in the process. We did some more maneuvering and we soon had the tree in it’s entirety free of the vehicle and standing upright – in the street. Now what? We both got on one side and started tugging. Inch by inch and foot by foot, up over the lip of the curb we pulled the tree towards the prepared hole. Again we received a warm round of encouragement from passing motorists. I have always known we lived in a friendly neighborhood. We got to the side of the tree’s new home, unwrapped the tarp and rather unceremoniously rolled the tree in to the hole. I thanked my friend, filled in the hole, and turned on the hose to water it in. While watering I started to wonder if there was a separate demographic on divorce rates for people who put down roots- literally. It is one thing for some one to commit to moving their underwear, toothbrush, and furniture. It is another to commit to a tree. This tree should out live us both. How is that for a symbol of permanence? I am happy to report that now years later both the tree and my marriage are still here, both defying the statistical odds for sustainability. It is a story told among the neighbors when some one new moves in- about that crazy couple who when they got married moved a tree. My husband was asked the other day by a recently widowed and then re-married neighbor “I hear you moved that tree all the way from Traverse City, and it  survived? Can I come look at it?” His answer- “Absolutely-  we have rich dirt around here-it is good for putting down roots. Welcome to the neighborhood”