Christmas Tree Lane

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Not really, but maybe come December 2025, it will. Ed and I are in the process of planting 40 conifer trees on both sides of one of our trails. We are creating our own Christmas Tree Lane. For now, all it looks like is a Charlie Brown version of our dream lane.

It all started on our fall trip up the east coast. After a long hike in the Fundy National Park in New Brunswick, we found ourselves on a path leading back to our car. The path was lined with evergreens – all different kinds – tall ones, short ones, fat ones, skinny ones. It was like walking in an enchanted forest, but not a scary one – rather a beautiful, magical one. It smelled of Christmas, the real thing. It was eerily quiet to walk on pine needles, the only sounds were chirps from small sparrows. The sun shone between the branches, many of which were laden with pine cones.

I told Ed I wanted one of these enchanted paths at Farm Dover. And, because my every wish is his command, we ordered some seedling trees from Pikes Peak Nurseries in Pennsylvania, and this week, they were delivered right to our front door.

Before our post-Thanksgiving feast yesterday and then again this afternoon, we planted trees. I would march off seven paces and place either a Norway Spruce, an Eastern White Pine, a Canadian Hemlock or a White Spruce at the appropriate spot along the trail. Ed would dig the hole and then I'd kneel down to place the bare roots in the hole and fill it in with the dirt. I'd hold its branches up while Ed carefully stomped around the little trees, compacting the dirt, making sure the tree was stranding straight, or almost straight. Then we would move on down seven paces to the next site for a tree.

We've still got a dozen or so more trees to plant and we are hoping to get out tomorrow afternoon before the weather turns bad. Then we'll sit back and wait for them to grow into a beautiful lane – just like the magical one we found ourselves on in New Brunswick.