I was worried a little about the fruit salad tree remaining in its pot for any length of time because I was quite sure it was a bare root tree that had been shoved into a pot at the nursery. So I built a wooden frame for a bed yesterday evening and this morning before the rain started I pulled the tree out of it’s pot to inspect the damage. As I suspected it was a bare root tree only very recently planted and although I managed to rescue the top of the tree from the nurserie’s brutal pruners, the roots had no such luck. Looking at it from the bright side, it meant I didn’t have to dig a very deep hole at all. However, I did loosen the soil up quite a bit and planted the tree with only the extra soil from the pot to amend the soil already there. It is not recommended to amend soil for trees at all anymore but since this is the rocky, clay mess that has been at the side of the house for the last 40 years I thought it was only fair. I then soaked the planting hole for about a half hour and gave the tree its first major pruning. I will erect the frame on the side of the house next week (I hope) to start training it onto.

I also cleaned up and pruned everyone in the whote flower garden, planted out the lemon balm in the 2 little rock beds beside the white flower garden and planted the parsley into the planter with the Cotinus. At this point the rain started and I decided to head inside for the day.