Our local landscaping place had 4 evergreen trees (1 white pine, 2 blue spruce, 1 Serbian spruce) leftover from last year, so we bought them for a discounted $75 (original price was $189). Right after we had them delivered, the winter struck and the ground was frozen for over a month here in Central PA. I did some online research and for spruce it said the best time to plant them was February. So I was holding out until then hoping the trees didn't die. Well, they didn't. I also could not break through the frozen ground even if I wanted to. Eventually Feb came and the ground was still frozen. I borrowed our neighbor's backhoe as a last ditch effort to get these trees in the ground. It took hours of work to break through the ice, but I eventually had 4 holes dug. I returned the backhoe and found my trees were frozen to the ground. I have never planted trees before, so this was all new. I eventually broke the trees free gently, but realized they were too heavy to move, even with my family out there all pitching in to help. I've read where they grow about a foot a year, so these have to be 4-6 years old by their size. They must weight hundreds of pounds. I was eventually able to maneuver the white pine onto a thick sheet of plywood, then rope the wood to my riding lawn mower and drag it over to its hole. It was a ton of work to just get that simple task done, and I am sure it probably did some subtle damage to my lawn mower. I didn't want to have to do this 3 more times. I noticed our Serbian spruce is now half brown/dead and half green. I knew I was losing one of these 4 trees. I borrowed my neighbors backhoe again and he brought it over last night. Someone else had been borrowing it for weeks. So here's my first question: can my Serbian spruce be saved by putting it into the ground finally? Or will it just continue to die? I don't want to waste the effort and time if it has no chance. But if there is a way to bring it back to life and turn all those brown needles green, I will do it today. My second question is I've seen mixed reviews over how to plant these trees. Many youtube tutorial vids just show them putting the tree in the ground and covering it with dirt. Others add all sorts of compost and other nutritious soils from the store. And yet others go into cutting the root ball at various angles before dropping it into the ground. Our trees are all wrapped in the canvas sack material with metal wiring holding it all together. Can I just clip through the metal wiring, remove the canvas sack, and drop the trees into the ground, then pile the dirt back around them? The guy who owns the landscape store told me you don't need to add anything special. Just add the dirt that was removed from the ground to make the hole. Is it really that easy?

Hello everyone. I’m here to seek assistance for my leach field that is out in front of the deck of our home. We live on about 2 1/2 acres but most of it is wooded and partly a ravine so the only spot for our Leach field was about 10 feet out in front of our deck. It’s fine I don’t mind it but my eventual goal is this. I would like to prep this area for a wildflower garden and put some beehives out in this area. I will not be planting anything with deep roots, no garden, etc. it’s about 100 feet long and about 55 feet out from our deck as far as general measurements of the whole area go. What I plan to do is utilize some large basketball size boulders that we have in and around the property to make a rough border around the Leach field, turn it into a wildflower area and then put two beehives out there next year sometime. My question is what do I need to do to prep this area for the flowers? This area is approximately 2 1/2 years old from having the septic system put in and so it’s relatively smooth with grass as well as some weeds that have taken over. You can’t see bare dirt anymore. Thank you in advance for your assistance