Digging

We are awaiting a shipment (from my lovely grandparents) of river birch trees. Hopefully these trees will help us deal with our water problem in the back of the backyard (see our backyard to-do list here). Since the shipment will arrive as bare root trees (more about planting bare root trees here) they have to go in the ground ASAP. So in anticipation of their arrival, I dug 10 holes in the back of our yard (you can get a better sense of their placement in the corner in this drawing).

Actually I dug 15 holes. There are 5 more holes over by where irises will come up (and where the composter sits). I want to plant a few more water-loving plants over there, which should also help soak up some more water.

So you can get a better idea of how bad our water problem is, this is what the holes looked like just a few minutes after I dug them - they completely filled up with water from the ground!

In addition to the holes waiting for plants, we added two native shrubs to the yard (also compliments of my lovely grandparents). A pink clethra was added along the side by the thujas where it’s wet (they like water) and a fothergilla was added next to the garage.

I still need to mulch both areas, but we’re also only 50% done with all of the mulching we need to do... There’s still a lot of yard work to be done!