After very positive results from moving lots of bushes and other plants in the garden I was confident enough that I could move our last tree in the front yard to a the property line behind our shed to create a bit more privacy for our sun room. Ana was of course all excited about this idea.
I started maybe half an hour before the Laker vs. Celtics game which started at 20:00 (this was game two, the Celtics down by 1:0 in the NBA finals). First I stitch out one spade (a special long and narrow one for digging tranches) deep around the tree cutting all the roots in a maybe 0.5-0.75m radius around the about 2.50m high tree. The roots I cut were not particularly big. That went pretty well, but of course the tree did not move a bit when I tried to take it out. Then I dug a 2 spade deep trench around the tree lining up with my previous stitches. By now I was able to get a bit under the tree’s roots and when I finished all around the tree started to move slightly. I thought there must be still some big roots keeping it down below and I asked Guillelmo (who arrived yesterday for a 12 days visit) to help me bend the tree together with its roots in all direction and cut off everything below. I was at that point completely wet from the digging.
We were able to bend the tree over to each side and I found no more roots connecting the tree and we realized that it must be the weight of the dirt sticking to the roots, which made it so difficult to move the tree. We were barely able to get the tree out of the whole after I shook off as much dirt from the roots without destroying more roots. After some major force was applied we were finally able to load the tree onto the wheelbarrow and pushed it with a lot of effort up the slope behind our shed were it fit perfectly into the hole I prepared. Meanwhile, it had gotten dark and I was glad to sit on the sofa after a massive shower. I had gotten so dirty the big hole will be closed tomorrow. Photos will follow soon, stay tuned.
storing highlights into the 'extended memory'