“Arbor Day is not like other holidays. Each of those reposes in the past, while Arbor Day proposes for the future.” – J. Sterling Morton
Trees were sparse on the Great Plains in the mid-1800s. A man in Nebraska Territory wanted trees for all the things trees do… to buffer wind, prevent erosion, provide fuel, fruit, and building material, to produce oxygen and not least, to just stand there looking beautiful. That man was journalist and Agricultural Board member Julius Sterling Morton. He was one of those rare visionaries capable and passionate enough to inspire positive, lasting change. Morton championed a day devoted to planting trees. He so moved the territory that they took him up on it. Classes left their schools to plant trees. Communities vied with each other to plant the most. There were speeches, prizes, parades, and dancing. On the very first Arbor Day, April 10, 1872, Nebraskans planted more than a million of them.
They did it again the next year and the next. By 1885 Arbor Day was a legal holiday. Other states took notice and began to do likewise. Today Arbor Day is an annual event in every state in the country and has parallels from Iceland to Australia. Tree planting dates are determined according to climate. Alaska celebrates Arbor Day on the third Monday in May which, this year, is May, 16.
Arbor Day became the roots of the Arbor Day Foundation, now with more than a million members, who provide millions of saplings every year, not just for Arbor Day but to regrow forests in the wake of massive fires, hurricanes and other calamities. They buy up rain forest acres to preserve them. This group has distributed more than 250 million trees in 43 years. They give advice on planting and growing them successfully.
Planting trees in Southeast Alaska: Light, placement, size, digging, backfilling.
First on the list for any smart house hunter in Juneau is ‘How much light does it get?’ We need light and privacy to feel good. With this in mind, we have to compromise. Conifers shade the place all year round, and close it in more every year. Place them strategically. Alders drop their leaves so the place is lighter in winter and more private in summer. Tree placement will affect our light but this isn’t just about us, compadres. Imagine how much more light affects the trees.
About fifteen years ago I got some suckers off those wonderful old-stock pie cherry trees out the road and planted two of them ten feet apart. Both get the same morning sun. The sun goes back behind the house, leaving the trees in shade, but in late afternoon the western tree gets some crucial afternoon light during late spring and summer. That one is straight. Its partner, despite me trying to straighten it up, has resolutely grown at a 45 degree angle towards the morning light and it’s going to topple in a few years. Likewise an apple tree I planted in the side yard headed west until it got tall enough to catch sun coming over the roof. Now its crown is curling back like a pompadour. The other trees make fun of it.
A tree with potential to grow huge might just do that. A hundred foot tree in a small yard is going to dominate everything. Roots will push a foundation. If it’s near the power lines you have to trim it back, which makes it look weird. Your uphill neighbors may want to top your trees to improve their view. (No, no, no. Topping trees goes against everything a healthy tree is about.) Planting three or four spruces for Christmas trees-and one a year after that-is fun unless the family gets attached to them and then what? You end up like my brother with a row of 25 foot conifers where you don’t really want them. Two other placement considerations are fall and winter. As fall goes from rainy gray into darker gray it’s so satisfying to have a bright shock of vine maple or cherry pop out on your walk. In a big snow winter, you want to make sure your trees are above the snow plow line and not where you’re going to throw driveway snow if you salt it.
The rule of thumb is dig a hole two to five times the width of the root ball. Juneau’s retired Cooperative Extension icon Jim Douglas had a simple formula for digging tree holes. “If you’re planting a ten dollar tree, dig a twenty dollar hole. If you’re planting a fifty dollar tree dig a hundred dollar hole.” Generally the hole should be as deep as the root ball such that, when you set your tree in the hole, the soil on top of the root ball is slightly above the surrounding soil. Bear in mind the there will be some settling as loosened soil compacts. Angle sides of the hole inwards as you dig down. Some people say dig a round hole. Jim Douglas dug square holes. “Trees are like teenagers,” he said. “If you make it too comfortable for them they don’t leave. Roots in a round hole just wrap round and round the hole. In a square hole the roots get to a corner then grow outward rather than turning back.” Loosen up soil below and on sides.
Some gardeners, including the Arbor Day Foundation, say backfill the hole with the same soil that came out of it on the theory that, if you add better substrate, roots will tend to stay in the hole instead of going off into the surrounding soil. There’s a lot of clay at our place so I mix in potting soil and perlite to loosen it up. That’s unless I’m transplanting little alders. They make their own fertilizer with a symbiotic bacteria in their roots and generally do fine whether you want them to or not. Give them a soak with water as you backfill. Put a layer of mulch on top but stop a few inches from the trunk.
Arbor Day is a conscious effort to plant a legacy that may be around for centuries after we are gone. As the Chinese proverb says, ‘The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The next best time is today.’
• Dick Callahan is a Juneau writer. In April 2016, he won first place in the Alaska Press Club Awards for best outdoors or sports column in the state.
