Diggin' A Hole

Last weekend D and I dug a hole in our front yard. Why you might ask? Cause we were preparing to welcome a new addition to the family :)

A while back I had mentioned that we would like to plant a Japanese Maple in the yard. Our previous townhouse had one in the back patio area and it was gorgeous. I loved watching it grow over the time we were there and am hoping our new tree will provide us me with the same enjoyment.

We dug our hole at the tail end of a two month dry spell. It was quite a process as we wanted to transfer the dirt to another area in the yard. D shoveled the dirt onto a tarp and then I separated the dirt from the turf, removing the weeds as I went. As you can imagine the ground possessed rock like qualities so the digging part was hard work. We also don't own a wheelbarrow yet so we had to transfer the dirt one shovel load at a time. We didn't have far to go, but I'm sure we looked pretty funny walking back and forth across the yard a million times. A wheelbarrow is definitely on our wish list for spring!

We filled the hole half way with water a few times to try to presoak the ground before we planted the Maple. If you don't do this then once the tree is in the hole the surrounding ground can steal the water away from the tree roots. Luckily for us the rain started a few days later and hasn't stopped since. So the ground was nice and moist come planting time. It's funny that now we are home owners with a yard we are trying to beautify, we welcomed the rain with open arms. We were actually quite excited about it :)

Yesterday was the day we had planned our trip to the nursery to pick out our Japanese Maple. I had practice and a game to attend in the morning to mid afternoon so by the time I got home D was itching to go. It was still raining, quite hard I might add, so I had my doubts about being outside. I also thought the folks at the garden center would think we were crazy for planting in the rain but turns out that it was the perfect weather conditions to plant a tree :)

So we chose a 3 gallon tree, grabbed some soil and bark mulch and drove the block home with our new Maple sticking out the back of our hatchback.

We decided to name our tree because we are dorks like that. So let us introduce you to Mr. Roboto, our new Japanese Maple!

And we have been personifying him ever since. Last night we had a discussion regarding if he was missing his friends at the garden center and that now he can watch the traffic go by ;)

We think he's going to be a great addition to our yard and can't wait to see how he transforms over the next few years. 

Mr. Roboto is currently the same height as D. Let's see what the height difference is a year from now. I should also state that the Maple tree is my birthday present (which is today) so we will always know what date to take another comparison photo :)

The final step was to give Mr. Roboto some root booster. Yes, we need an outside watering can as well ;)