Tree planting is the process of transplanting tree seedlings, generally for forestry, land reclamation, or landscaping purposes.
I don’t generally consider myself to be an outdoors-y person so tree planting is a little out of my comfort zone. Getting off the bus early in the morning and seeing rows and rows of little tree saplings ready to be planted was a little daunting at first, as they expected to finish all 3000 by the end of the day. I arrived with a group of about 16 volunteers and about 9 o’clock (we’d stayed in Capertee Valley the previous night) and we split up to give the people that had been working since early that morning a break.
The first challenge of the day was finding a mattock. A mattock is a like pick-axe, but it’s used for making holes in the ground. There seemed to be a desperate shortage of these things as a few of us were stood around debating whether or not we could make holes in the ground with our bare hands (the answer was no. The ground was like concrete at this time of year). Somehow I came across an unused mattock lying on the floor and landed myself the job of digging holes.
It’s not unreasonable to think that making holes in the dirt is an easy job, but after five minutes of hitting the ground only to have a shallow dent in the dirt you start to think that ‘easy’ isn’t the right word. The mattock itself couldn’t have weighed much less that I did and as a small teenage girl who avoids most physical activity like the plague, throwing the mattock at the ground to try and dig a hole was about as much as I could manage. Luckily I found another volunteer who was a little stronger than me to dig a hole while I went through the rest of the planting process.
After the hole has been made, the dirt needs to be prepared so the tree roots can cope with it. This dirt was dry, hard and full of clay lumps (not ideal). The solution to this issue is to pull out the lumps with your bare hands and push the finer dirt that’s just under the grass into the hole. Extremely conscious of any spiders or little beasties that might be living in the dirt I was disturbing, I began preparing the dirt.
Hole dug out and dirt prepared, all that was left to do was put the plant in the hole and fill it in. The tree saplings are kept in little pots filled with tightly packed soil. Very tightly packed soil- I couldn’t get the tree out. I tried hitting the bottom of the pot on my shoes, on the mattock and even just whacking it on the ground but I was just letting all the soil near the top fall out and the soil at the bottom of the pot wouldn’t budge. One of the older volunteers must’ve noticed me smashing the little pot around and getting soil everywhere, because he showed me how to get the tree out properly… It turns out it just needs one little tap on the top of the pot. Just a tap near the tree rather than on the bottom and the stubborn little sapling slides right out with the soil still in the shape of the pot.
I finally got to putting the tree in the hole and filling it in with soil. Seeing the little sapling poking out of the ground was well worth the time and effort it took. The trees we were planting were a range of shrubs and trees that will grow to make a real difference to the surrounding wildlife, and it was extremely satisfying to know that the sapling I put in the ground could one day be home to a bird, a glider or another animal.
Overall, tree planting was an enjoyable experience that I would highly recommend and I will be going tree planting again in the future. Just remember to bring a mattock and gloves, and tap the top of the pot rather than the bottom.
To find out more about getting involved in tree planting you can visithttp://treeday.planetark.org/involved/ and search for a site.
The first challenge of the day was finding a mattock. A mattock is a like pick-axe, but it’s used for making holes in the ground. There seemed to be a desperate shortage of these things as a few of us were stood around debating whether or not we could make holes in the ground with our bare hands (the answer was no. The ground was like concrete at this time of year). Somehow I came across an unused mattock lying on the floor and landed myself the job of digging holes.
It’s not unreasonable to think that making holes in the dirt is an easy job, but after five minutes of hitting the ground only to have a shallow dent in the dirt you start to think that ‘easy’ isn’t the right word. The mattock itself couldn’t have weighed much less that I did and as a small teenage girl who avoids most physical activity like the plague, throwing the mattock at the ground to try and dig a hole was about as much as I could manage. Luckily I found another volunteer who was a little stronger than me to dig a hole while I went through the rest of the planting process.
After the hole has been made, the dirt needs to be prepared so the tree roots can cope with it. This dirt was dry, hard and full of clay lumps (not ideal). The solution to this issue is to pull out the lumps with your bare hands and push the finer dirt that’s just under the grass into the hole. Extremely conscious of any spiders or little beasties that might be living in the dirt I was disturbing, I began preparing the dirt.
Hole dug out and dirt prepared, all that was left to do was put the plant in the hole and fill it in. The tree saplings are kept in little pots filled with tightly packed soil. Very tightly packed soil- I couldn’t get the tree out. I tried hitting the bottom of the pot on my shoes, on the mattock and even just whacking it on the ground but I was just letting all the soil near the top fall out and the soil at the bottom of the pot wouldn’t budge. One of the older volunteers must’ve noticed me smashing the little pot around and getting soil everywhere, because he showed me how to get the tree out properly… It turns out it just needs one little tap on the top of the pot. Just a tap near the tree rather than on the bottom and the stubborn little sapling slides right out with the soil still in the shape of the pot.
I finally got to putting the tree in the hole and filling it in with soil. Seeing the little sapling poking out of the ground was well worth the time and effort it took. The trees we were planting were a range of shrubs and trees that will grow to make a real difference to the surrounding wildlife, and it was extremely satisfying to know that the sapling I put in the ground could one day be home to a bird, a glider or another animal.
Overall, tree planting was an enjoyable experience that I would highly recommend and I will be going tree planting again in the future. Just remember to bring a mattock and gloves, and tap the top of the pot rather than the bottom.
To find out more about getting involved in tree planting you can visithttp://treeday.planetark.org/involved/ and search for a site.