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Day 16: It was an epic battle, but I won
Today's tree was a Bald Cypress (Taxodium distichum) that I planted on a piece of property owned by the Capital Improvement Board. It is located between our newly expanded convention center and Lucas Oil Stadium. I had hoped to plant one on site at Lucas Oil, but it is pretty much surrounded by cement. Any place that a tree could fit already had one planted. I was still very excited to be placing a tree right along the path many people will walk on their way to see the Colts and the Super Bowl this February!
Today's tree wasn't the biggest I have planted, but by far the most stubborn. It was in a 25 gallon bucket of dirt. As hard as I tried I just could not pull the tree out of it. I ended up doing something I had really hoped I wouldn't have to do. I used my arbor saw to cut the bucket off of the tree. Oh well, I have saved the materials on 15 of the 16 trees I have planted, that isn't bad. Now that the tree was out, I was fighting with the dirt to find the root flare. If you watched my video from a few days ago you heard me talk about the importance of uncovering the root flare, well the dirt around this tree was so compacted it didn't want me to find it. When you get a tree from a nursery it has typically been repotted a few times, each time there is additional dirt added to the top of it. The basic two issues this causes are:
- If the root flare (base of trunk that swells out to become buttress roots entering the soil) is underground it will become too moist and not be able to breathe. I know that seems silly, because we always think about roots needing to be underground, but it is really important!
- When you uncover the root flare you will also identify girdling roots. These are roots that wrap around the base of the tree. As the tree grows they will prevent the trunk from being to expand and will essentially choke and kill the tree.
It took about 20 minutes with an arbor saw, utility knife, and my friend Chauncey for us to uncover the root flare. At this point I was exhausted, but I still needed to dig a hole that was about 2.5 feet deep and 4 feet wide. The first few times I put the shovel into the ground it was great, very soft turf...but then I hit the clay and rocks. I would say that 90% of the hole needed to be broken up with a pick-axe before being able to scoop out the dirt. This planting sapped the energy out of me, but I think this is going to be a gorgeous tree as it grows and matures in this space. Maybe the best news of the day was when I picked up an American Sycamore tree at KIB to plant on Sunday. I was able to lift it up with just one hand!
