Fernando, our Christmas tree
It has been a while since it was Christmas, but we still had a Christmas tree in our apartment. We had it there from a few days before Christmas until the end of January. After that we went to Poland to visit family. So Fernando, the name Maja has given to the tree, stood on our balcony. Waiting for us to return, so that it would be planted in the ground.
Instead of the usual spruces and firs, we decided to buy an Italian stone pine. It doesn’t really look like a Christmas tree, but we wanted to plant an Italian stone pine on the land. So we decided to combine the Christmas tradition with buying a tree for the land, besides we didn’t have room for a big tree anyway. The upside of an Italian stone pine is that during all those months inside, it only lost 1 or 2 needles. And once it has grown into an adult it can provide us, or more likely the squirrels, with delicious pine nuts!
Now that we are back in Spain it is time to plant out Fernando. Italian stone pines can be found all around the entire Mediterranean. People already started planting these trees for their nuts in prehistoric times, about 6.000 years ago. When they are mature they can be recognized by their iconic umbrella shape.
Since this tree originally comes from the region it’s well adapted to the environment. This type of pine is pretty drought resistant and is said to survive on only 250 mm of rainfall per year, so we definitely won’t have to give it much water. If any at all! They also handle wind and even salt spray pretty well, you actually see them along the Mediterranean coast regularly. So they are pretty hardy.
We planted our tree on a dry southern hill. Hoping that in the future it will provide shade, cover against rain and a good mulch of pine needles. Preventing the soil from drying out or washing away during a hard rain. So that we can later plant things that need more water. Like raspberries, strawberries or even blueberries!
