Because we have had so much wind and tree damage this fall due to some wild high wind weather and even a snowstorm (of sorts) there were no city crews available to take out the dead or diseased trees with their big machinery. So, Karl Dawson and his helper Elizabeth (the current Americorp volunteer) worked like heck the day before the planting to grub out two of the entrenched accolade elms, one of which was over 10 years planted. The third one they saved for us, and you can watch our struggle here. We learned how to use a mattock
to manhandle this tree out of the ground. It took these guys quite some time to finally corkscrew it out of the ground. I stood around mostly and cheered from the sidelines, every now and then striking a blow with a shovel or pushing on the trunk to try to encourage it to release itself out of the ground.
Did I mention it was raining very hard during this whole adventure? It rained, it was cold, we were soaked, and we had a great time. Thanks City of Portland for the tent and the coffee! It's a great Christmas tradition to plant trees days before Christmas, even if we are now replacing some of the very same trees we planted just a few years ago. I don't know what is wrong with these accolade elms, but there seems to be a very high failure rate for these trees. Hopefully the oaks we are replacing them with do much better. Thanks to the Kuenzi Turf & Nursery in Salem for these great looking oak trees. They are much admired by the neighbors.
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