Meet our newest tree: Bitty Big Blue.
She's a Blue Palo Verde from Trees for Tucson. I ordered her online, paid $20 for the sapling and $5 for delivery, and she showed up on our front porch about a week later.
Description from the website: Native tree with moderate to fast growth up to 30’. Bright yellow flowers cover the tree in spring. Unusual blue green bark. Tiny thorns that tend to dissipate as the tree matures. Typically multitrunked with upright growth. Good for wildlife gardens and attracting pollinators. Offers delicate shade, perfect for patios. Drought deciduous.
In the southwest corner of our front yard we had a mature Aleppo Pine. It provided amazing shade to the bedroom facing the street, and the chicken coop (there was a smaller Aleppo Pine in the south yard as well). Sadly, one of our first big projects was to take out the trees and have the stumps ground down so that we could put in something new - both trees were dead of a common blight.
At a mature diameter of 30 feet, our future Big Blue should fill in that empty corner nicely as well as being a nursery tree for cactus and succulents (the pine trees were too shady and acidic for anything to really grow under their shade).
Getting her into the ground wasn't too bad once I found a spot free of caliche (I just looked for a spot near the old ground-up trunk, and then broke up any hard spots with my shovel). The clay soil here is super dense, but when they shredded up the old trunk tons of mulch was mixed into the soil.
I used water as a tool to help loosen up the clay, and you can see the little pot or Growoya that I planted with the tree (it's supposed to keep the soil moist up to 3 feet - I bought it from Harlow Gardens and paid about $5 more than Amazon). You're supposed to water the tree for one hour on slow flow every 3-4 days for the first year, but I don't trust my haphazard watering schedule. The Growoya cost more than the tree, but I consider it insurance against having Bitty Big Blue die on me.
Currently she's about 2 feet tall - I expect a lot of root development this first year, but I can't wait to see how big and beautiful she gets in the coming years. We have so many projects to complete around this house, but I knew that trees take time and needed to get done first.
She's a Blue Palo Verde from Trees for Tucson. I ordered her online, paid $20 for the sapling and $5 for delivery, and she showed up on our front porch about a week later.
Description from the website: Native tree with moderate to fast growth up to 30’. Bright yellow flowers cover the tree in spring. Unusual blue green bark. Tiny thorns that tend to dissipate as the tree matures. Typically multitrunked with upright growth. Good for wildlife gardens and attracting pollinators. Offers delicate shade, perfect for patios. Drought deciduous.
In the southwest corner of our front yard we had a mature Aleppo Pine. It provided amazing shade to the bedroom facing the street, and the chicken coop (there was a smaller Aleppo Pine in the south yard as well). Sadly, one of our first big projects was to take out the trees and have the stumps ground down so that we could put in something new - both trees were dead of a common blight.
At a mature diameter of 30 feet, our future Big Blue should fill in that empty corner nicely as well as being a nursery tree for cactus and succulents (the pine trees were too shady and acidic for anything to really grow under their shade).
Getting her into the ground wasn't too bad once I found a spot free of caliche (I just looked for a spot near the old ground-up trunk, and then broke up any hard spots with my shovel). The clay soil here is super dense, but when they shredded up the old trunk tons of mulch was mixed into the soil.
I used water as a tool to help loosen up the clay, and you can see the little pot or Growoya that I planted with the tree (it's supposed to keep the soil moist up to 3 feet - I bought it from Harlow Gardens and paid about $5 more than Amazon). You're supposed to water the tree for one hour on slow flow every 3-4 days for the first year, but I don't trust my haphazard watering schedule. The Growoya cost more than the tree, but I consider it insurance against having Bitty Big Blue die on me.
Currently she's about 2 feet tall - I expect a lot of root development this first year, but I can't wait to see how big and beautiful she gets in the coming years. We have so many projects to complete around this house, but I knew that trees take time and needed to get done first.
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