Holey moley

As everyone on this island who has ever attempted to do so knows, digging a hole is easier said than done.

As previously noted, the “soil” is 90% rocks and 10% dirt. So I knew, when I started digging a hole in a sunny spot for the new lilac tree, that it wasn’t going to be a quick job.

The buckets you can see had been filled and emptied at least three times before this photo was taken.

What the photo does not clearly show is the evidence of the Murphy’s Law of digging holes on Gabriola. This law states that, wherever you have chosen to dig a hole, you will, when you have dug to three quarters of the depth you need, come across a boulder so large that not even Mr Fixit (if he was still around) could remove it. Which is, of course, exactly what happened on the right hand side of the hole. So the width of the hole must be expanded and digging must start again. Luckily, Murphy’s Law only applied once on this particular hole.

Then there’s the question of what to use to fill the hole around the roots. They say you should use a mixture of equal measures of the “soil” from the hole and compost or soil supplement. This, of course, requires panning for dirt. So I get the colander out and get started.

I throw a fair amount of supplemented dirt into the hole, then add the pot with the lilac tree and add dirt around it. Finally it’s time to pull the lilac out of the pot and place it in its new home.

Except I can’t. The little tree will not budge from its pot. It is completely wedged in, root bound no doubt. This is a two person job and I am but one person. Incredibly frustrating to be so close to finishing the job, but what can I do?

I need to leave soon for a rehearsal, where I am filling in as the prompter. I’ll see if someone can come back to the house with me afterwards and help get the tree out of the pot. Time to have some lunch.