The Wedding Trees
When my daughter, Sydney, got engaged last year I was over the moon as I adore her new husband with whom she had been with for the past 12 years. And, as his last name is Atwood, she decided on the theme of Atwoods in the Woods for the wedding. Being the tree hugger I am, I decided that we would give out live white pine trees as favors to the guests…plant some love for the Atwoods! So, with all the love in my heart I ordered 50 white pine seedlings from the Ingham Conservation District which would be delivered at the end of April. It was then I realized, better late than never, I had no idea how I was going to keep these trees alive until the June 24th wedding date!
The first thing I did was attend the Spring Walnut Council meeting at the legendary Bill and Alice Botti’s house and got advice from all on how to keep them alive for two months with a warning from one participant that he had done the same for his daughter and absolutely none of the trees lived. I was feeling very over my head and more than a little panicked!
I picked up the fifty little trees, nicely bundled in brown paper wrapping and got to work using all the info from the foresters and sprinkle of my own inJENuity. I started with an under-the-bed tub I found in the neighbor’s trash as my base, lined it with newspaper and added layers of soil and manure. I made sure there was plenty of drainage in the bottom the container to prevent root rot and put peat pots in the mixture so there would be no tangling each tree’s root system.
I then planted each tree with its own mixture of the soil/manure, being extremely careful not to damage the roots or roll them too much. I watered them in and hoped for the best.
As the days passed I saw some initial browning of some of the needles and ended up moving them out of the unseasonably hot direct sun and that seemed to help them a bit. I can’t say I got them all to live; I actually lost seven of the fifty trees before the wedding.
The final step before giving them to the guests was finding a good way to package them for transport and of course wedding pretty. I put each tree’s roots and some soil from the container into a plastic baggie; I then put them in chenille bags and attached a card with a QR code to a site for white pine planting and care. Finally I nestled them into baskets and they made their final trip to the venue.
To date I have no data on the survival rate of the white pines after they left the wedding except for the one in my yard which is doing wonderfully.
Special thanks to Lisa Parker and the Walnut Council for sharing your knowledge with me and thank you to Sydney and Doug Atwood for being my loves and for having an occasion that I got to experiment with trees!