Day 98 - Tree Me

Just before we really dug into the idea of moving, we planted two trees in our front yard. Little did we know that we would soon be packing up the house and never get to see through the seasons, let alone reach maturity. 

When the farm became ours, we wanted to immediately get plants in the ground for a variety of reasons. Besides wanting to be able to see them grow, we wanted to minimize our boring lawn. We are definitely a “the more you grow, the less you mow” family. We also wanted to help establish boundaries and improve the native diversity of our plants. That being said, knowing how much it costs to get just two trees in the ground, we wanted to add plants in a manner that beautified our space without crushing our bank account.

As luck might have it, one of the first pieces of mail we received at the farm was from the Arbor Day Foundation. For just a small donation, not only would we receive a quarterly mailer, but a yearly membership, and ten trees. When they arrived, we found one was in very poor shape so we were given ten more. We would need a ton more trees, but this was a great start and the price was right. 

When browsing through social media, we found that a local nature center was giving away free trees to celebrate Earth Day. I was teaching so my wife offered to pick up a  few saplings. Running a bit late, she was worried they would all be gone. It was actually quite the opposite. Arriving near the time they were done distributing trees, they let us take as many as we could first into our vehicle.

Another wonderful opportunity came through some friends from a native plant group I joined. With an annual seed exchange celebration, I had previously been given seeds to plant in my outdoor classroom. This time around, we were given even more to have for the farm along with some already established native flowers.

While we certainly couldn't rely on these generous accidents and friendly donations to continue, we were ecstatic to start beautifying our land.