Plant a tree for National Tree Week, they said. So I did. It would have been less trouble digging a tunnel from Arklow to Aberystwyth.
First select your tree. Make sure you buy a tree that will be appropriate for the site you have in mind, the experts counselled. A Californian Redwood, for instance, is not suitable for the suburban garden; it grows to over 300 feet and lives for 2,000 years.
Picking a tree is worse than choosing wallpaper. Oak, beech, eucalyptus, larch, orange ball, mountain ash, palm - the more you see the more confused you become. Eventually it was decided that a silver birch would be the appropriate specimen for the site in mind. Tall and elegant but neat in habit, yellowish catkins in spring, cool fluttering leaves in summer, myriad of colours in autumn, gleaming white bark in the gloomy days of winter. A tree for all seasons. The appropriate tree for the site in mind was too tall to fit in the boot or along the back seat of the car. "No problem", said the lad at the garden centre. He gingerly lowered the black plastic container through the sunroof on to the front passenger seat and I set off for home with bare branches protruding into the heavens like antennae on a warship.
No sweat
It all looked simple on the gardening programme. Dig a circular hole on the selected spot wide and deep enough to give the tree a comfortable home with space to expand. The gardener on the telly did it with no sweat between the commercial breaks.
Out came the evenly incised turves to be stacked away in a corner for future unspecified use. The crumbly brown soil followed. A wooden stake was put in place with a few taps of a hammer. In went the tree, its plastic container deftly removed with three quick strokes of a small knife allowing the root ball to remain intact. Back in went the soil, firmed smooth with a couple of gentle foot pressings. Then a quick dowse with the watering can and he was on to the next lesson about pruning roses.
Surprisingly the earth did not move that way for me. Digging circles in the grass may have been a God-given gift for the pagans who pranced around Stonehenge (that is if pagans were allowed to accept God-given gifts). But even using a bin lid as a marker I found it impossible to get the line of my circumference to converge.
Settling for a near-circle I then found the turves did not yield to my spade as easily as they had on the telly. They were fixed firmly to the earth by the roots of every weed known to aboriculture. Slabs of irregular size and depth had to be dug, dragged and kicked from the ground before the virgin soil lay unprotected before me.
It was then I made an amazing archaeological discovery. The selected site for the appropriate tree had obviously been visited by other mortals. I had chosen the one spot in Ireland where generations of builders from the Stone Age onwards had discarded their unwanted rubble and rubbish. The tiphead of countless centuries was at the bottom of my garden, cunningly covered by a swathe of suburban grass. Stones large and small, surplus granite slabs from ancient rock gardens, bathroom tiles, rusted nails and screws, globs of lime, fragments of glass from the first factory established in Waterford, Viking cup handles, Maundy coins, medieval marbles - they were all there in profusion.
More work
Hours later with broken fingernails and tetanus-threatening cuts I reached the bottom of the tiphead. I gently slipped the tree in its plastic container into the hole. It protruded a good three inches above the grass level. Back to the spade work.
Then another discovery of historic dimensions. The spade recoiled with leg-shuddering speed from the remains of a pre-Ice Age oak forest. Aeons of ice, frost, wind, rain and flood had made no dent in this petrified mass. A saw was procured. Sawing into roots mingled with soil is not a task for the feeble of mind and body. The teeth of the saw become clogged with soil. Progress is slow and painful. Eventually enough mangled wood is extracted to keep the home fires glowing for a fortnight. And enough space has been created to house the tree.
Now for the stake. My hammer makes no impact, even when I perch on a chair to give added height and force to the blows. A bigger hammer is borrowed from a neighbour and slowly the stake is forced downwards into its new and somewhat unsteady berth.
Bare roots
The appropriate tree is placed in the hole again. Incisions are made down the sides of the plastic container with a sharp knife. The plastic falls away but a large piece remains wedged under the rootball. Tugging it free dislodges mounds of dry soil from the rootball. I learn later that it should have been soaked overnight in a bucket of water). I look around for loose soil to cover and anchor the bare roots that have emerged. All I can see is a heap of stones and a pile of broken roots. The tree is leaned against the side, dislodging more soil from the rootball. Fresh soil is dug up from another part of the garden and ferried to the hole. After heeling in the soil the expensive rubber ties are attached to the stake. It and the stem are too far apart and the ties cannot make the journey. Household string comes to the rescue.
At last the only moment of bliss in the whole agonizing exercise: water is poured over the ravaged earth and the tree seems to show its gratitude with a shake of its slender branches.
Does National Tree Week happen every year? Or just every millennium?