Planting a Juniper
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I finally have the placement decided and the hole looks more than adequate. Right now I’m pretty pleased with myself for only taking a little more than an hour to get to this point. At the rate I’m going I’ll be done in less than 2. It usually takes me at least 2 hours to get this far.
What took most of my time was picking up a little something that needed to be planted before the juniper.
Overcoming it’s fear of gravity a rock learns to roll uphill.
See that’s not so hard.
I can’t believe how dumb rocks are, especially the flat ones. They fall for that ‘roll uphill’ bit every time. They’ll just sit there even after the tail gate closes behind them. I keep them chained just in case they decide to jump but none ever has. I think they’re in a state of shock that I outwitted them.
A couple waves of my magic steel wand and I’m done. The juniper is now planted and it looks like the rock finally has a mate.
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Due to a massive hatching of Black Flies I’m getting out of Dodge. I’ll be back by Saturday to see if it’s safe to breathe. Meanwhile don’t hold your breath waiting for a reply. By the time you read this I’ll have already left.
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May 5th, 2008 at 12:10 am
OMG, you have guts moving rocks around like that. Good job.
What kind of Juniper?
May 5th, 2008 at 12:39 am
How fun to see how you outsmart those dumb rocks. This one looks comfortable in its new home, so maybe it wasn’t so dumb to go with you after all.
May 5th, 2008 at 7:36 am
Aha, now we know your secret for moving dumb rocks…but I still don’t see me doing this kind of rolling (up or down hill) with any rock that I cannot pick up in my own hand.
Nice photos and great work.
May 6th, 2008 at 12:49 am
I agree with Pam, perhaps rocks aren’t as stupid as we think, they’re just waiting for us to carry them someplace nice.
May 9th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
I wish I could find rocks like that around here. They seem to grow much smaller in Chicagoland. The new planting looks great.
May 13th, 2008 at 10:07 am
Hi Wiseacre,
It’s fun to see you boss those boulders! The rocks I find are smaller but we apparently both have the same magic steel wand ~ when my husband and I moved from IL to Austin our wonderful relocator advised us to buy one right away.
Annie at the Transplantable Rose
September 28th, 2008 at 8:10 pm
I’m still laughing at your dumb rocks. I’ll have to see if the rocks here are that dumb too. Great method of stone heaving.~~Dee
August 15th, 2009 at 4:23 pm
[...] WiseAcre Gardener outsmarts heavy boulders with a chain, so I thought I might be able to outsmart ole ‘Whale’s Tongue’ by roping it like a heifer at the rodeo. Looping a thick length of rope around the base, I hauled with all my might, trying to bully it out of its hole. Nothing doing. Several exhausting tries later, I went back to digging and levering, finally getting my handsaw under and sawing blindly at stones, clods of soil, and presumably some recalcitrant roots. Pulling again on the roped agave like a madwoman, I felt it slide. Yippee! [...]