Once the trees arrived from Saharanpur, we had a day or two to plant all of them, lest they start dying in the extreme sun! After a couple of heavy rains in the run up to this plantation drive, it had completely stopped raining again! While this allowed us time to finish digging the holes, and also work on our water management, we were hoping for a periodic drizzle after the 5th of July, once the trees are all planted.
We brought out our tree planting plans, given to us by the landscape architect (who had since disappeared). And started to match the trees to the holes! It was an impossible task. Most saplings were un-recognisable to us now! We had separated the fruit trees from the forest trees when they had arrived, but otherwise could not tell one tree from the other. The shoddy labels tagged by the Nursery guys had either got detached, washed away or mixed up!
We decided to go with our instinct, and started the plantation from the forest. We invited our friends and family to join in the celebration, and every visitor got to plant at least one tree, if not more.
Given the high amount of termite in the land, we were advised to dip each sapling into a solution of Ibidachlorpid before planting it. While we are totally averse to the idea of using chemicals, but we did this procedure for fear of losing 1000 trees to termite, and an entire year of progress.
The windbreak was easier to plant, as it was 4 rows of trees - of Casurina and Silver Oak. This did not require as much supervision and hand holding and was managed by the farm help independently!
Overall we managed to plant 1000+ trees in two days flat. Of course we needed a stiff drink once all this was done, and our destination of choice was Hops & Grains, Sector 9 Panchkula. We must add that our farmer's attire didn't get us an easy entry into this micro brewery!