A group planting project
The idea to plant 50 trees for a 50th birthday came this summer, on a walk through our vegetable garden with an artist friend who had come to visit between the waves.
Round birthdays are festive occasions in Germany, a chance for the celebrant to bring loved ones together, to laugh and embrace, to feel grateful. And 50 — well, no need to explain. For Jahrgang 1970 this was not meant to be.
We needed more trees — to break the wind, to provide shade for animal and vegetable, to keep us company. “How about 50 trees for a 50th birthday?” she suggested. And so an idea was born.
How to choose 50 trees?
In early fall we thought about which trees would flourish in an increasingly dry northern German climate. We wanted to include trees from other places: Asia for around the living area, North America for the wilder parts of the landscape, European natives and trees from the Eurasian continent and the Near East to add to the oaks, beeches, lindens, chestnuts, maples, bird cherries and plums that have volunteered—surviving hungry deer, gnawing voles, droughty summers and a fierce west wind all year round.
Fruit trees of course!
The website of Van den Berk nurseries helped to provide drought tolerance, origin, and other important information for the selection.
Prunus domesticus ‘Hauszwetsche’, domestic plum
The Crew
You have to look at trees that you don’t know and take photos of them. Then you go home and choose which trees you like. Then you order them. Then you put them in. And then you have to water them. It’s very important to water them. — Alexej, 10
The placement of the trees was done with the help of white plastic stakes and a plan of the landscape. The team at Anschütz Grünanlagen, Hoch- und Tiefbau GmbH in Neustrelitz took care of the ordering, delivery, planting and protection of the trees, which are standard high-stemmed root-balled trees transplanted twice and whose trunks measure 14–16 cm.
Danke an: Karsten Anschütz und Kollegen/innen Frau Zachert, Frau Hinz, Herr Anjolowski, Herr Haunauska, Herr Baltzer und Herr Birkner.
Anschütz Grünanlagen, Hoch- und Tiefbau
