Planting horse chestnut trees
Sep. 24th, 2019 11:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elizillaWe have planted two horse chestnut trees.
We planted them on the strip between the sidewalk and the street. Which we don't actually own - it is city property. But the city master plan calls for street trees like this so I don't think they're going to object. The city has a program to put in street trees, where the home owner can sign up and pay only a portion of the cost, and they do the work. It cost us more to do it on our own, but we got to pick our own species of tree and do it on our own schedule. We didn't ask permission but I doubt they will even notice, since the leaves are already off of the new trees. Horse chestnuts lose their leaves early even when not stressed by transplanting. The trees have good buds already on them, ready for next year, so they'll burst forth in spring. They are supposed to have pink flowers with yellow stamens, and a max height of 30 to 40 feet.
We chose the horse chestnuts because the strip between sidewalk and street is a little narrower than optimal. We need the trees well back from the street, since there is no curb and people park on the grass verge. We don't want the vehicles that park to be tearing the branches off, and if the city someday installs curbs and gutters we want there to be room. Also, since the trees are north of the sidewalk, they need to be close to the sidewalk to shade it. And with the trees so close to the sidewalk, we don't want a tree with spreading roots to heave the sidewalk up, or a tree whose mature size is too large. And we like flowering trees. So we chose this one. It will be messy, someday, but there are already black walnuts in the neighbor's front yard, and at least our nuts won't stain things; they're just spiky. And by the time the trees get big enough to drop a lot of crap, I'll be too old to care. Plus, diversity is good. If another tree blight takes out large numbers of street trees, ours will be different.
Horse chestnut is poisonous to humans, so if you come over, don't eat the nuts. They are not poisonous to wildlife so I suppose we'll have plenty of squirrels. Except that we already have plenty of squirrels, so, never mind. :-)
The original plan was to plant very small trees. Small enough to be easier to plant. I asked for the smallest ones they had. But they still turned out to be large enough to be difficult to plant. I guess tree nurseries just do that.
There's room for a third tree out there, but we may just get that one through the city program, next time they do it. It is awfully hard to plant giant trees.
We planted them on the strip between the sidewalk and the street. Which we don't actually own - it is city property. But the city master plan calls for street trees like this so I don't think they're going to object. The city has a program to put in street trees, where the home owner can sign up and pay only a portion of the cost, and they do the work. It cost us more to do it on our own, but we got to pick our own species of tree and do it on our own schedule. We didn't ask permission but I doubt they will even notice, since the leaves are already off of the new trees. Horse chestnuts lose their leaves early even when not stressed by transplanting. The trees have good buds already on them, ready for next year, so they'll burst forth in spring. They are supposed to have pink flowers with yellow stamens, and a max height of 30 to 40 feet.
We chose the horse chestnuts because the strip between sidewalk and street is a little narrower than optimal. We need the trees well back from the street, since there is no curb and people park on the grass verge. We don't want the vehicles that park to be tearing the branches off, and if the city someday installs curbs and gutters we want there to be room. Also, since the trees are north of the sidewalk, they need to be close to the sidewalk to shade it. And with the trees so close to the sidewalk, we don't want a tree with spreading roots to heave the sidewalk up, or a tree whose mature size is too large. And we like flowering trees. So we chose this one. It will be messy, someday, but there are already black walnuts in the neighbor's front yard, and at least our nuts won't stain things; they're just spiky. And by the time the trees get big enough to drop a lot of crap, I'll be too old to care. Plus, diversity is good. If another tree blight takes out large numbers of street trees, ours will be different.
Horse chestnut is poisonous to humans, so if you come over, don't eat the nuts. They are not poisonous to wildlife so I suppose we'll have plenty of squirrels. Except that we already have plenty of squirrels, so, never mind. :-)
The original plan was to plant very small trees. Small enough to be easier to plant. I asked for the smallest ones they had. But they still turned out to be large enough to be difficult to plant. I guess tree nurseries just do that.
There's room for a third tree out there, but we may just get that one through the city program, next time they do it. It is awfully hard to plant giant trees.
