Pecan Grove - Planting Trees 1

While I'm not a tremendous fan of pecans, I do enjoy eating some every now and then.  My grandfather, however, was crazy about pecans and would eat the all the time.  We would pick them up under some trees near a stream on some family property when I was really young.  I've been planning to plant a few pecan trees in memory of my granddad since he passed away last September.  Today, I started that project.

I placed an order with Womack nursery for four varieties of pecan trees.  The order arrived on Thursday evening but included five trees.  They did not have the Choctaw variety so they gave me a Waco and Oconee instead.  With those changes to the order, I now have a Cheyenne, Oconee, Pawnee, Waco, and Nacono.  

The Cheyenne, Oconee, Waco, and Pawnee are all protandrous (early pollen shedding).  The Nacono is the only protogynous (late pollen shedding).  I'd originally ordered a Choctaw to have a pair of late pollen shedding trees which bloomed at the same time.  
  

The trees arrived packed in moss type material and then wrapped with plastic to keep the roots moist.  I added a little water on a few occasions while working so they would not dry out. 

The following two charts show the pollen shed and receptivity for the various pecan varieties.  The top chart is from Texas A&M.  The second chart is from LSU.  They don't exactly match but that could be because of the different regions.  I'm not sure what to trust so the more varieties the better. 

The first tree I planted was the Cheyenne.  The soil is mostly sandy loam but at about three feet down it is rather compacted red sand.  I first thought the red sand was clay but it just breaks apart in your hands so it is definitely sand.

The next was the Pawnee.  The soil is mostly sandy loam but it has a fair amount of little rocks.  While it should not matter, I tried to avoid putting larger rocks back in the hole.  I then put in half a bag of Sta-Green Tree & Shrub soil.

I started on a third tree but once I dug about three foot deep, I hit a really large rock.  The rock covers the bottom of my two foot round hole.  Most of the rocks are sandstone but I could not break this one and was a bit too tired to dig it up so I left it for now.  

For lunch, I had another ribeye.  They are becoming a bit of a tradition.