Mixing it up

We are having another go at growing trees in the front yard. About 6 months ago I bought 6 tube trees on an impulse. The tubes sat around for about 3 months. It was just too hot to plant out. We kept them shaded and watered but one turned up its toes and died. I think it was the one that didn't take too well to be dragged off the table from time to time by the puppy and being stuffed back in the tube.

Finally we got around to digging the holes for them. But in this heat it is easy to give up quickly. So we dug as big a hole as we could before the water in our bodies was evaporated. Put some potting mix in with the clay/sand soil that makes up our soil here and put the trees in. A local builder gave us shade cloth to put around the trees and we shrouded them up.

But it was HOT!!!! The ground burned out. We watered and watered and one day we didn't water. Two trees died that day. Three left. We watered and watered and one day they weren't watered and another tree died. Two left.

I kept on watering the dead ones for a while in the hope that new shoots would come up from what might be still alive roots. After a while though, the embarrassment of watering dead sticks in full view of everyone walking or driving by got to me and I gave up the hope of resurrection.

We unshrouded the wire mesh off the remaining two trees - one was and is still doing great - it is an umbrella bush - Acacia ligulata. The other tree is a bloodwood -Eucalyptus opaca. This tree is suffering. Its tender leaves are obviously the meal of choice of caterpillas that come out for a midnight feast. I've now put down some loose mulch around it as a way of making it harder for the caterpillas to crawl across from their buffel grass hideouts and up to the stem of the tree. It has worked a bit and the tree is holding on somehow.

So now we are giving it another go with somewhat more advanced trees - a couple of Eucalyptus Woodwardii (drought tolerant) and a Eucalyptus Citriodora. And a grapefruit tree that Trevor intends to use as a grafting base to make a mixed up citrus tree - grapefruit, lemon and orange.

This time we have learned to dig after dark. And this time we have actually managed to plan for digging. When you come up from the East Coast like us digging a hole for a tree is pretty easy. The ground is usually pretty good, there is a nursery around the corner and the conditions are relatively mild. Here you need to consider what you are doing well in advance. So going down to Alice Springs means making sure that you get supplies of rotted manure, pea straw, good compost, humus mix, water holding crystals and coir/peat blocks. Anything to help with keeping moisture in the ground.

So far we have three holes dug, two have a great mix of humus mix, local soil, water holding crystals, coir/peat mix, and some local sand courtesy of the local workshop. The third one will get mixed in this weekend.

We will plant the trees out (they are currently in the shade house with the vegies getting used to the heat), and then we will start watering every day and see if our second more considered approach to tree planting has more success.

May your trees bloom
Susan