A Ten-dollar Tree in a Hundred-dollar Hole

Parched and dry is this high western desert,

As far as the eye can see.
And ignorant I was, when I first arrived,

Of the worth of a simple tree.

A little too proud of my knowledge of trees,

(although not so much those of this realm),
I maligned as "trashy", with no basis in fact,

The ubiquitous Siberian Elm.

My driver that day shot me one nasty look;

As a native I guess he would know.
Rather than scold me, as I’m sure I deserved,

He simply professed, "Hey! It grows!"

As I tend to be proud and quick to debate,

I had trouble discerning my error,
"What is it", I wondered, "about growing a tree

That evokes such anxiety and terror? "

My first clue came from my good neighbor Clyde,

With his singular hay-farming ways.
Seeking five crops where others got three,

I could see being different pays.

Clyde loved his trees, he tried every kind,

He planted and I’d watch them die!
Until he replaced them with Siberian Elms,

They always brought tears to his eyes.

This good-hearted man can spin quite a yarn,

But one gem you can never impugn:
"If you cut down a tree it had better be hot

Or the tree is best left un-hewn!"

There aren’t many trees that will grow in this place;

Out here where they "tested the bomb".
You won’t see a Live Oak, and Poplars die young,

And it freezes too hard for a palm!

"That’s just how it is!", or so I believed,

‘Til I ventured for one more good look.
There are some folks, it seems, whose yards and trees

Could have come from a gardening book!

"How?", I wondered, and queried a friend.

He promised I’d soon reach my goal.
"The secret lies in the planting!", he said,

"Put a ten-dollar tree in hundred-dollar hole!"

Just what this meant, I wasn’t quite sure,

But the saying of it had a nice ring,
So I set it aside and watched my trees die;

Kept doing the same old thing!

That slap in the face with an arboreal glove,

This challenge has become quite a pain.
Each year; early May, I pick up that gauntlet

And try planting trees again.

Learning comes slow to a head thick as mine

But I think I might now understand:
You've got to out-fox the way of the wild
To make anything grow in this land!

First dig a big hole, (you best wet it down),

And throw away all of that sand,
Make it as wide as your shovel is tall
And as deep as a tall man will stand.

Then fill it back up with composted manure,

Mixed with a big bag of nitrate.
Fill it in lifts of about half a foot

And soak it all good; IRRIGATE!

Let this all settle for a good day or two,

Then pull all the weeds you can see.
Once you’ve recovered from the digging and filling;

Then you can go buy the tree!

Don’t forget, to stake it up well!

The wind in this vale really blows!
Unless you’re after that "leaning tree" look,

(provided, of course, that it grows)!

This story ends with the words of a sage,

A Greek proverb for thick and for thin:
"Society grows great when old men plant trees

Whose shade they’ll never sit in."

August 2009