Hammer Time

{I know, lamest post title ever.}

Today Cole built the wood box to go around our purple peppermint willow.  And she did it all by herself.  I am both impressed by her skill as a craftsperson and thrilled with how it came out.

I think I'll add a couple of rectangular planters to two of the sides and plant some succulents in them.  Operation: Beautify 777 Crescent is in full swing!

South Bernal Tree Planting 6.18.11: A Photo Diary

On Saturday morning, Cole and I met a bunch of other Bernal Heights residents and volunteers at a house just off of Cortland for the big South Bernal Tree Planting, arranged by Friends of the Urban Forest.  This is such an awesome nonprofit organization!  It facilitates San Francisco tree planting by getting the community members involved and teaching about tree planting and care along the way.  This weekend, 35 trees were planted in our neighborhood, and the crew that Cole and I were on did 5 of those, including one in front of our building.

We all gathered at 8 am for some breakfast goodies and to meet each other.  A bunch of crews went out to deliver the trees, while some of us stayed behind to put together stakes and cross braces for each tree.  When everyone was back, the FUF executive director, Dan, got up to say a few words.

Since 1981, FUF has planted over 45,000 trees in the city.  That's so amazing!  Dan told us to Google "Bullit car chase" to see how treeless San Francisco looked when that movie was shot.  I just watched it, and it's bad!  You can definitely see the tree deficit--check it out for yourself.

Our new friends Brian and Ashley helping to add FUF stickers to the cross braces for each tree.

Although the true cost of each tree is around $425, FUF is able to offer a tree to a homeowner or renter for $75.  Anyone who gets a tree in a tree box in front of their home pledges to give it 15 gallons of water a week and provide maintenance and care for its lifetime.  As part of the $75, FUF comes out two or three times while the tree is small to ensure that it's doing well and to recommend pruning.  One interesting tidbit I learned:  tree topping (the severe maiming of tree branches) carries a $1500 fine here!  So anyone who's going to prune better know what they're doing.

This is our planting leader, Glen, at our first planting.  He was a really seasoned volunteer who's been doing this for years, and you can tell.  He instructed us on every step of the planting, from properly removing the tree from its bucket to calculating the proper planting depth to finally adding stake ties so that the tree can get exercise.  In this photo Glen was shaving off roots from the sides of the root ball.

Here we're still at the first planting and the homeowner, Amy, is driving a stake into the ground (hard work!).  She chose a flowering red gum tree for the front of her house, which is located a few blocks up from our place on Crescent.  Following this photo, we added the rest of the stakes, hammered on the cross braces, and tied the tree to the stakes.  We then moved on to plant 3 more trees at addresses south of Crescent before heading over to our place.  I'm telling you, planting trees is hard work!

This is Cole checking out our tree, a purple peppermint willow, before it went into the ground.  We chose a fast-growing but wind resistant tree with long, slender purple leaves that smell like peppermint when crushed between your fingers.

More planting action in front of our place--you can see most of our group here.  Glen is once again shaving roots from the tree's root ball before we placed it in the ground.  This helps the roots to grow outward once in the soil instead of curling up as they do in the bucket.

After we got the planting depth right and the tree in the hole, we added a watering tube filled with gravel.  This allows a clear stream of water to head directly to the tree's roots, giving it a better chance of survival and health.

Here's Kevin, Cole, and Glen adding stakes to the tree.  Generally FUF uses two stakes on the sidewalk side to help protect the tree from car doors and one stake on the other side.

Me with our planted tree!  We're planning to add a wood barrier around the sides of the box and want to plant something at the base of the tree--maybe annuals, or some jade, or a fragrant bush.  And the barrier will (ostensibly) help to prevent wayward dogs from using the box as a toilet.

After we finished planting our trees, we headed back up the hill to a potluck for all of the South Bernal planters.  Everyone brought great food and it was so much fun to get to know our neighbors and compare notes on our planting experiences.  People chose a very wide variety of trees and I think we'll have to take a walk soon to see all of the trees now that they've been planted.

Being involved in this was so much fun that I want to keep volunteering.  I was really inspired by a planting leader who has only missed one neighborhood planting since 1981.  This guy is not an FUF employee--he's just a volunteer and San Francisco resident who really enjoys helping out.  Wish I'd gotten a photo of him!

Neighborhood Improvements

First, I forgot to share the highly exciting news that we're getting a tree for the front of our building! When we first moved into our building, the square tree planter directly in front of it was an empty plot of soil, its tree having perished in a huge November 2009 storm.  (You can see the now-deceased tree in this antiquated Google Streeview photo of our building.)  According to our downstairs neighbors, during the storm the tree plunged through their living room windows, prompting the landlord to replace the windows throughout their apartment (lucky!).  But while the building got an upgrade, the planter sat idle.  (To be fair, last year this plot of soil did bear potatoes, thanks to another enterprising neighbor, Jaime.  I'm just not sure if I'd eat street potatoes.)

Last summer, I looked into what it would require to plant a new tree in the planter.  Turns out we'd have to get permits, contact the owner of the building, blah blah blah--not to mention find a way to get a tree home in the Volvo.  A local nonprofit, Friends of the Urban Forest, facilitates some of the paperwork and provides the actual trees for a modest fee, but will only work on a neighborhood scale -- they want at least 20 residents to be involved before they'll sign onto a neighborhood planting.

So I temporarily gave up on my quest for a tree and instead we planted this cordyline, which has flourished.

But!  A local blog that I read recently announced that a FUF South Bernal Tree Planting was in the works!  Within a day we'd obtained permission and signatures from our landlord and are all set to receive a tree for our building.  Cole is going to the first planting meeting tomorrow evening and we even get to lodge our first and second choices for the type of tree we'd like.  We'll also be helping with other plantings throughout the neighborhood -- it's a team effort.  Personally, I'm dreaming of a magnolia.  And don't worry--our trusty cordyline will be relocated to a large planter somewhere in the vicinity of our entryway.

Second, I've just read my first review of the newly-renovated and under-new-ownership St. Mary's Pub.  This place is about seven or eight blocks from our place, and I've always admired the sign.  More importantly, the new owners are our neighbors across the street.  Cole met them at last fall's block party, which I missed.  Now that I can see from the photos that some of the walls inside this joint appear to be painted the same color as my kitchen, I really feel the need to stop in for a drink.

Yes sirree--exciting things are afoot in SoBe.