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Yeah, yeah. Earth Day was back in April, I know! But this is something that is still making me smile.
I just so happened to stop by our local Rosauers for groceries that day. When I walked in, they had a big display table set up for Earth Day offering free ponderosa pine saplings. I have a hard time passing up free stuff anyway (I thought about grabbing two…), but I immediately thought of all my garden beds that need filling. So I adopted a sapling!
Seriously, so cute!
So the instructions on the bag (which I composted, thank you very much!) state the following:
“We recommend that you grow this tree in a container until it is 2 to 4 feet tall, and then transplant it to a permanent location in the landscape. First, fill a 3 to 5 gallon container (or larger if you wish) with well-draining planting soil. Dig a hole for your seedling, approximately 3 inches in diameter and 8 inches deep. Place your seedling’s root plug into the hole, and fill in soil snugly around the roots. The top of the root plug should be just below the surface. Water well, and place the tree in a sunny, outdoor location. Always water your tree thoroughly, but be careful not to over-water by watering too frequently-always allow the soil in the root zone to become almost dry between deep waterings. Your tree will enjoy any high nitrogen plant food; 18-15-15 is a good nutrient mix. Good luck, and thank you for planting this tree.”
As you can probably tell from the middle picture, I did NOT plant this in a container. Nope, it went right into the ground. But I did, for the most part, follow the rest of the instructions.
As soon as I scrapped the container growing method, I figured there was no harm in experimenting with this little guy to see what I could get away with.
I amended the soil with some topsoil and Espoma Bio-Tone Starter fertilizer. Even still, I recognize that my soil, especially in this spot, is far from the ideal well-draining, loamy soil this plant wants. I’ve been letting the soil dry up a bit between watering. I have been fertilizing it, but not with the high nitrogen fertilizer they recommended (I’ve been using Fox Farm Grow Big a 6-4-4 all over my garden). Honestly, I forgot all about that recommendation until just now when I typed it out! So I’ll be fixing that soon.
So how’s it been doing since it was planted at the end of April? I think it’s been doing great! It’s put on some new growth. It’s not been sickly looking once. It’s slow growing, but I think that’s just the nature of trees. I’m pretty proud of the effort I made, and I’m excited to watch him keep growing (hopefully).
