I took Hugo to his fencing class on Saturday morning. Roo was busy ripping out the old ones and digging the big holes. When I returned home, Roo was not so happy.
In a totally unexpected setback, the shovel hit something hard, about 2 feet under ground.
Ayup. A concrete slab.
A huge concrete slab, running the length and width of the area which we needed to dig.
We have no clue what it is. A patio? A walkway? A slab for an oil tank?
And why is it two feet under ground?
It's a mystery. We don't even know how big it is as we gave up trying to find its other edges.
The gardening project now required a quick trip to the tool rental place for a jackhammer.
Bonus pile of broken concrete which will all need to be hauled by hand out to the front of the house, and then we'll.... I don't know. Maybe the local dump will take it if we load it in the van in small batches.
It could have been worse. It could have been an erratic, like this one recently dug up in Vancouver.That would have been a real challenge.
And finally, eventually, the trees were planted.
Big V's filled, and now just little V's left! Yay!There's still a little gap right in the middle but we fidgeted a bit with the plants, and the branches have loosened a bit so even a few days later, things are looking better.
Now we're babying them. They need extra care for about 2 years. Their roots are not well developed and the tree can end up acting as its own umbrella so they need a drip hose placed at the trunks. We've also been told that sometimes the trees are not very efficient at bringing moisture up to the branches so they need misting to help keep the foliage humid.
6 comments:
Sorry, but I had to laugh:)
Once again it sounds like what happens around here:(
Glad you got the trees in though, and they look great!
Great job! A happy ending! you should publish this whole escapade! Your sense of humour is gratifying. Engarde!
Bwaha ha! We have so been there. There was a mound in our yard with three very sickly evergreen shrubs on top of it. It was ab ugly and kind of stupid mound, so we decided to flatten it out, only to find. . .ta-da, you guesse it. . .Random Concrete Slab. Guess that explains why the evergreens looked so bad! This was randomly out in the middle of the front yard with no reason to exist that we could come up with.
So glad to see other people have similar finds during the gardening archaeology. :)
I gotta say I'm grateful the only thing we hit when we put in our tornado shelter was clay. I can't imagine finding an entire slab! Glad the ordeal is over.
Though I am quite aways off (MO, USA), I would love the left-over concrete to put in the holes dug by my not quite miniature Dachshund, Seymour, aided in his China quest by a Border Terrier mix, Margie.
Your trees look stunning - and I didn't know about the watering, etc. Before the dogs, I had thought of planting root ball Xmas trees along a property edge; no more - only carefully watched table top Xmas trees now.
I so miss evergreens though I do have a wonderfully huge holly tree.
Roberta - you sure you don't want to drive over and load up.....? :-)
Sarah - your comment reminds me how blase we all get about our local hazards. Tornado shelter? Crap that's scary!
T.L. WHY do people bury these weird random things? Is it just an outgrowth of messy housekeeping? I'll just toss something on top & put a flower pot on that mess in the middle of the living room & nobody will notice...
lostontheprairie - these things only seem funny way after the fact. Thx for commenting!
Karen - schadenfreude is awesome, isn't it? Until it's your turn.....bwahahahaha ;-)
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