Taking care of baby trees in winter, and the tracks you find in the snow

Trees, growing in the wild, somehow survive harsh winters.  But not all of them.  We wanted to the best we could for our 40 babies this winter. Should be easy right, just go out, unbury the trees from a few inches of snow, make sure their wood chips were still in place, and give them lots of love.

A twin topped tree doing well in the snow.

This was promising.  We thought "This is going to be easy, just go out, and brush a bit of snow off them so they can maximize the light."  Boy, were we wrong.  For a while, it was like this.  A bit of snow, followed by lots of sunshine.  The smallest trees were sometimes completely bent over in a few inches of snow. 

Covered with cold snow, but thriving

 By the end of December, the trees, for the most part, were still thriving.  We knew we were going to lose one at that point.  But, it had already declared itself lost before winter hit, so we were not surprised.

Then came January, the snows got deeper, and it got harder and harder to find our poor trees.

Where is the tree?

We started to get worried, surely such tiny trees couldn't withstand such heavy deep snows.

January continues, we get more snow.  Several feet this time.

The snow comes up to the top of my boot in this picture.  About 2 feet.

No baby trees to be found anywhere.

It took me 4 hours to find and unbury all 40 trees.  Not just because they were hard to find, but because we couldn't get our car onto our property without getting stuck and I had to walk the entire property in 2 feet of snow to find our trees.  I was really beginning to wonder if it was worth it.  But, I will admit, that was one hell of a workout.  If you ever want to work muscles you never knew you had, walk for 4 hours through 2 feet of snow without snowshoes.

Tiny footprints I found barely making a dent in the deep snow.

 By this time, it was clear we were going to lose a lot more than just one tree.  During this trip, I found two more that I thought for sure would die.

During a warm stretch in March, we went back to take inventory of the lost trees, and to plant our wildflower seeds, knowing it would rain soon.

Mixing purple aster wildflower seeds into soil to be poured into our flower trenches.

 So far at least 8 trees have declared themselves as not making it through the winter.  There are some that are trying to make it.  And there are others that are clearly thriving.  Time will tell.  In the meantime, we've ordered more trees to replace the ones lost, and also to begin planting in the nature circle.