Fringefaan the Forester

So the call went out a couple days ago asking if people could water the trees that we planted in the new traffic circles not too long ago. We've had a little bit of rain, but not enough for thirsty young trees. So yesterday over the course of a couple of hours I hauled my two-gallon watering can down to the cedar in the Woodland circle three times. I wasn't sure how much water it needed, so I posted a query to the group receiving the e-mail notices, explaining what I'd done so far and asking if it was enough. The woman who had offered to water the tree in the Linden circle replied, "You're that tree's savior!" Unfortunately she went on to say, "I think that 6 gallons every three days would be minimal when there is no rain." Not sure I can actually manage that level of watering, but it's good to have an idea of the ideal.

There was a story about urban forestry on NPR a while back that quoted the director of a program in Seattle who said that it's not enough to just plant trees. Too many of them die in the first couple of years because they don't get enough water. It's relatively easy to dig a hole and wrestle a tree into it. The hard part is keeping up with the watering, because that requires people to take responsibility for an ongoing chore. So how the hell did I get stuck with this job? Well, I dunno, but I'm actually looking forward to watching that tree grow up real big.

Besides, I need another excuse to procrastinate when I should be working on editing or writing for fanzines.