June 10th, 2008 TFiJ17: Tree Planting Day
For our next family video clip, this time we focus on our house, especially with our recent landscaping efforts. This spring Shinobu’s dad (a champion bonsai grower), has been helping us plant new shrubbery. We’ve been working hard each weekend on various little things, and the place is really beginning to shape up!
During the beginning of May we were browsing around a local garden store and happened on a great deal- a huge (4m) Japanese Maple tree for only about $400. We took one look and just knew, “that tree belongs in our front yard!” We hurried up and bought it before we could change our minds, and a few days later, on May 9th, the tree was delivered to our home and planted. I didn’t have to work that morning and captured the entire event on video. I hope you enjoy this little clip. It’s kind of cool to watch the guy plant the tree.
If you’d like to see a higher quality QuickTime version of this clip, just click here. If you right click on this link and choose “Save As”, you can download the file and watch it on your computer. Finally, all of our videos can be seen on the newly updated Videos page.
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June 11th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
Cool, Jerry. The planting was a professional job. You even had the rocks hauled away. It looks nice.
June 11th, 2008 at 10:28 pm
That was really cool to watch. How impressive was that guy? Wow! I have never seen a tree planting that was so meticulous and perfect! That was really amazing! Did you know that the Maples are a popular choice for the art of bonsai? I bet Shinobu’s dad knows that! I think it would have been funny if you had chosen a Sugar or Red Maple (a tree more common in America… funny cus here it is VERY rare to see Japanese Maples, except in someone’s yard as an ornamental… in fact, I believe that Japanese Maples are asexual… they cannot reproduce ‘naturally’, but I could be mistaken)… Sorry, I love trees!!!! Very cool clip!
June 12th, 2008 at 7:33 am
Lee and Darius are right about the video and the tree and the planting. I loved watching the video! Your carbon footprint just got lighter, Talandis Family in Japan. Mother Earth thanks you!
From Portland, Oregon: the Land of Trees,
Rob
June 12th, 2008 at 8:42 am
Thanks for the comments, guys! I’m glad you liked it. It was a nice break from seeing cute kiddies week after week! Yeah, it was a good job planting by Itabashi-san. We paid ¥15,000 ($140) for his service, and we were very happy we did. He worked like a surgeon. He said he does that sort of work everyday, 8 months a year, then takes the winter off so he can “play” (his word). Pretty cool.
DT, you may be right about Japanese Maples being asexual, but I don’t think that’s the case with ours. If you look closely, you can see these little seedling things in the shape of little propeller blades. I looked up the tree on Wikipedia, and there are several hundred varieties of Japanese Maples… wow.
June 13th, 2008 at 5:14 am
Gerald,
That is a nice touch. Now all you need is an American Elm and a Lithuanian Oak!
Dad
June 13th, 2008 at 9:12 am
Hey, those trees would be great! Nice “multinational” idea!
June 13th, 2008 at 11:06 am
Well done, Jerry! That really is a cool video. It was interesting to see how they plant them and the level of sophistication is very impressive. The video quality is great, too!
June 15th, 2008 at 2:53 am
Jerry my wife liked the video. She wonders how often you have to water the tree. The soil looks pretty dry there.
Rob
June 15th, 2008 at 8:41 am
Well, for now we need to water it each day because it’s new, but once the tree has settled in, we won’t have to do anything. Actually, the top soil is a special type of sand from the mountains called “yamazuna”. It is very rich in vitamins and minerals and makes for good drainage. This is ideal since it rains so much here (especially during the rainy season from mid-June to end of July). We’ve got a big pile of the stuff out back and use it whenever we plant something or for repairing bald spots in the lawn.
June 17th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
I wonder if yamazuna is like sandy loam. Hm. Interesting. Well, thanks again - I really got into the meticulousness of that tree planter. I can cancel my therapy session this week after watching that.
All the best that money can’t buy,
Rob
P.S. Gas is $4.25 here in Portland… but that’s another thread on this blog.
June 17th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
Great, Rob! Glad you liked the clip. I was afraid it would be boring, but so far the feedback has been good. I also loved watching him work and learned a lot.
Gas is “only” $4.25/gallon? Ha! You’ve got it good… I’ll continue my comments on this topic over in the “Insane Gas Prices” thread.
July 2nd, 2008 at 9:40 pm
Wow… very impressive. We are going to build a house of our own, hopefully they will start in August. We are having it built by a construction company, turn-key-ready or what that is called. The only thing we have to do is the flooring and landscaping. And seriously, I am so impressed by the way that man treated the lawn, the tree… He must really love nature in order to handle it with so much respect. I’ve never looked at being respectful in such a way with nature. Of course, we try to be “good” to the environment. But just for the sake of planting a tree, to make such an effort and then making it seem like creating rather than hard work. Wow.
Is this generally a way that Japanese people have with nature?
July 3rd, 2008 at 6:45 am
Tanya,
Great to hear from you!
Yes, that is the way they plant trees over here. That guys effort was “par for the course”, as they say. Nobody would think his work was anything special- it’s just the way things are done. This is what I love about this country- there is a very high degree of professionalism associated with work.