And now, trees !!

New Crepe Myrtle at NE backyard corner near patio

Sadly, my back yard had no trees  (though several neighbors do).  That changed on Sunday July 1 2011 when a friend and I planted two beautiful Crepe Myrtle trees.  The trees were selected at Rainbow Gardens nursury on Saturday, driven home over surface streets rather than freeway to minimize damage (the the tips extended past the back of my Prius hatchback and the drive took about 70 minutes), and I spent some time on Saturday night figuring out where it would be best to put them.  The unseasonably mild (cool) weather on Saturday and Sunday was a blessing.  And then, on Sunday evening, just after the trees had been planted and lightly watered, an intense two hour thunderstorm made sure everything was very well watered.  The weather was very helpful for this project.  Normally you wouldn't expect weather like this on July 1.

SE backyard corner, still thinking about this

I had been debating for a week what to do about what seems the most immediate privacy issue in my back yard, the south east corner nearest the neighbor, where the neighbors window has view of Lyndhurst doorway and if the neighbor is standing in front of her window she has a commanding view of my back yard.  My 6 foot privacy fences provide very little privacy because they run in depressions 2-5 feet beneath the elevation of the house.

Well I have had several plans now what to do with that corner.  Just before going to the nursury, I had decided I would not use trees but instead build an elevated garden for small plants in planter boxes elevated to just below the top of the fence.  Now, several days later, I'm not sure that plan will work and am thinking about using cloth sunscreen panels instead.  More about that later.  Anyway the story about the trees is that I decided to go to Rainbow Gardens without any clear plan of what to do, just to see what they had, because it's a top rated nursery my friends talk about and I'd never been there.  When I was at Rainbow Gardens, I fell in love with these two trees and decided I would buy them, probably to use in the corner but also possibly something else.  Rainbow Gardens was an incredible place, I bought a windsock, pot hanger, and some other things also.

After setting the trees in that corner, it was clear that they didn't really provide any significant privacy there after all.  What's needed is very dense foliage continuing for 15 feet or so.  Also I was worried that trees in that corner wouldn't get enough sunlight for big trees because of the neighbor's tree.

On the other hand, it was clear my windsock would do nothing to block the view from neighbors at my southwest corner.  I was disappointed when I discovered last year that Lyndhurst would not block that view because of the 5-6 foot setback from the south fence mandated by community standards and the fact that all my utility wires run through there.  From my master bedroom window, I can sometimes see into the  kitchen of the SE neighbor's house; I can always see the light from their kitchen through their sliding glass door.  I had spent much time thinking of some strategy to block the view with a sign or something, but it was seeming that would do little also.  It's a difficult visual corridor because nothing permanent can be built there and because the view that must be obscured ranges from 6 to 9 feet from the ground at that level.

New Catawba Crepe Myrtle along south fence

But putting the larger of the two trees, an 8 foot Catawba Crepe Myrtle (which cost $99) into that spot immediately blocked, or at least mostly obscured the view.  Furthermore, it could block the view not just from my bedroom window, but from the entire plateau to the immediate west of my house, an area that might serve as a nice sunbathing patio in the future.

I could not dig into the ground at that point because of telecom cables running as little as 3 inches deep, not to mention the electrical service which is supposed to run 3 feet deep in heavy PVC pipe.  Nor could I remove the tree from its container pot and pile dirt around it because that 6 foot wide strip provides drainage from my yard down to the lowest point, which is at the transformer in the SW corner.  Water blocked at that point could do serious damage to Lyndhurst and/or my expensive Fencecrete fence, so the water drainage must not be obstructed.

My plan was to transfer the Crepe Myrtle from the container pot to a 22" pot I had bought, and to remove the bottom from that pot so the roots could grow into the ground.  Or just leave in the larger pot, which would probably be enough for a few years.  Well it would have been very hard to cut the 1/4 inch thick plastic on the resin pot I had bought, and my friend suggested we just cut the bottom on the container pot and use that instead.  As the roots need to grow, they can grow right into the actual ground below rather than the extra space in a slightly larger pot.  Sometime after placing the now bottomless tree we went back again and I stripped the thin grass beneath it using a scraper hoe, then I chopped the earth a bit using a two pointed hoe.

The smaller $59 seven foot crepe myrtle (shown at the top of this blog entry) was placed at the northwest corner, where it blocks the views from the neighbor to the north and potentially many other neighbors further north as the street inclines uphill. Potentially, those neighbors could see me and/or friends on my little backyard patio, and that privacy issue has long been a concern of mine.  The tree is already tall enough that it obscures the undesired views, and should get much better over time.  It also adds some very needed color to the most visible part of my yard.

The smaller crepe myrtle was removed from its container, but the root ball was simply placed on top of scraped and chopped earth.  Then two bags of topsoil were piled on top.  At this spot, we could have dug a small hole, but my friend didn't want to, thinking of the very hard clay soil.  I believe the root ball of a tree should never be planted below grade level anyway, the top of the root structure of a tree actually needs to breath.  On healthy trees, you always see the top of the root structure above ground.

These trees will need to be watered daily or semi-daily for the remainder of the summer.  It might be a good idea to stake them down, but I was pleased they stayed upright during a very intense but brief thunderstorm on Sunday evening.

I've been thinking about getting a full automatic sprinkler and soaker system installed soon.  Since I came up with that idea, I haven't had a good time to call the sprinkler installer that is most recommended.