There is no one Arbor Day on our Homestead. We plant trees both spring and fall here.
This fall we planted five more 6 foot tall trees on our Small House property. Two are White Pines and three are Arborvitae. It seems like we are always planting one kind of tree or another. Mostly we plant them for screening from the busy roadway outside of our home but trees, as you know, give us so many more other benefits too.
These White Pines will help to screen noise, traffic and pollution from the roadway to our home.
It takes a White Pine approximately 75 years to grow to its mature height (75 ft.) and width (35-50 ft.).
Because we have lean, sandy, oak savanna forest soil here we work hard to amend our soil before we plant, sometimes as much as two years in advance. We typically add a lot of compost to the soil mix, either my own homemade compost or well-rotted horse manure compost we haul home from a friends horse farm. We top dress each tree with several inches of bark chips on top after it is planted and watered in.
This is the strip of bark chips we readied over two years ago to help our soil along, pre-planting.
The row of arborvitae will help to screen the front of our home from the traffic on this two lane roadway.
I know that we won’t live to see these trees mature in our lifetime but this is one of the things we do on our homestead because we know in our hearts this action is the right thing to do. This is green living and right-action on behalf of our community.
Eventually these White Pines will grow to create a living screen.
This planting bed sits alongside of our gravel driveway and provides a barrier between out roadway and our home.
We plant trees for Mother Nature and the good of our earth community. Excuse me while I go out and water my new trees!
Blessings from The Small House Homestead.
Small House Big Sky Homestead 