Hudson Valley Home and Garden

Living and gardening in an older Hudson Valley home

Where There’s a Will…

Posted on by Paul

Nearly all aspects of creating the woodland garden have been challenging. From digging out large bushes to moving big rocks, every task has required not only muscle, but also some forethought – ingenuity if I may lay claim to such a skill. The old adage “where there’s a will, there’s a way” is something I thought about nearly every day. For reference, the origin of this expression is dated to 1640. George Herbert wrote, “To him that will, ways are not wanting.” The modern expression first appeared in 1822 in the “New Monthly Magazine.”

After having spent months, clearing and installing paths, benches and borders, I rather thought planting would be an easier task. The following four photos show one particular part of the garden.

Huge Japanese Honeysuckle bushes and downed trees.
A large catalpa tree that had fallen many years ago.
This pachysandra was next to a fallen catalpa tree.
This is the same area, looking from the pachysandra. The honeysuckle has been removed. The Catalpa tree was cut down to one-third. I used segments of the catalpa tree to form the border of the path. The remaining third I painstakingly rotated to provide a place to sit and look down on the garden. Moving the remaining part of the tree was not a simple task, it necessitated using an iron pole to lever the log inch by inch into place.

One thing the woodland garden lacks is evergreen plants. Pachysandra was growing in the area I had just cleared, however with this exception nothing else is green in the winter. To remedy this I bought 7 eastern white pines and 3 blue spruce trees (From Manza Family Farm). The eastern white pines are native to the area.

The pines being unloaded from the nursery truck.

When the trees arrived I asked the deliveryman how much they weighed. He estimated between 250-300 pounds each. He had a hydraulic platform to move them from the bed of the truck to the ground.

Three unloaded and four more to go.

When I bought them I thought planting them would be easy. I was wrong.. The seven white pines were seemingly impossible for one person to manage. I needed to transport them nearly the distance of a city block. How could I move a tree that might weigh twice my body weight? I couldn’t lift them – I could barely roll them. The spruce trees were manageable.It occurred to me that my lawn mower is heavy and strong, so I devised a transport method.

Mower to the rescue.

Using a blue plastic tarp and some orange plastic rope I made a transport. I reasoned that the weight of the tree would be great enough to enable the tarp to work.

This was the first tree I moved.

Moving the trees onto the tarp was not easy. Moving them from the tarp to the planting places was even more difficult. I planted 4 and had to stop for the evening. When I went to bed the forecast was for rain starting at 8:00 a.m. I resolved to get up early to plant the remaining 3 trees. I got up at 5:30 a.m. to plant trees – it wasn’t even light yet. My neighbors walk their dog early in the morning and always walk down my driveway. Much to my neighbor’s surprise I was digging a hole when he appeared with his dog. I finished the last tree shortly after 8:00 a.m. They were planted just before a nice rain.

The same view as shown at the beginning of this post. Three of the pine trees ready to provide year round color.
Blue spruce trees at the far end of the garden.

Planting the trees was a back-breaking task. It wasn’t just the transport, but the digging the holes unearthed many good sized rocks. Without the use of the lawn mower transport it would have truly been an impossible task. As with all the trees and plants I am installing, I can’t wait for the trees to root and begin to show growth. I know they will. Where there’s a will, there’s a way – even for trees.