First tree I ever planted

This tree cost $500 in a 24" box size. I got it from East Bay Nursery, which is one of the best in the area. They have a broad selection of healthy young specimens, including many 24"-box trees. The nurserymen were also helpful, friendly and knowledgeable. Delivery was $45 to my location (they charge by distance, not by quantity). Tax was charged on delivery, too.

Pittosporum undulatum is also known as Victorian box or Cheesewood. It's a fast-growing evergreen that can reach 25 to 75 feet. Mine measured roughly 10 feet at planting. Creamy white springtime flowers are supposed to come in clusters and be very fragrant. But, alas, I have not seen any flowers yet.

Euonymus shrubs

Eleven 1-gallons shrubs from Home Depot. Emerald Gaiety Euonymus, "a dense, erect branching, evergreen shrub, can be used as a colorful border or foreground planting, rich green, rounded leaves have a pronounced white margin, part shade to shade, 3ft tall, low water once established, low maintenance." This is the fun part. See excavation.

Digging through hardpan

Digging through hardpan is never fun. Too bad I didn't think of renting a demolition hammer. Oh well. Instead, I hired a laborer to swing a pick axe. Poor guy. Hope he didn't break his back. He looked strong, though. This is on the side of the driveway opposite the new tree location, which was luckily much easier to dig. Emerald Gaiety Euonymus will be planted here.

The floor of the trench is practically waterproof, so to improve drainage I installed a perforated pipe — sometimes called a french drain. I sloped mine gradually, running it under the driveway as a solid pipe, then perforated again to a sump bucket that discharges to the street. The direction of flow to the sump is secondary as a backup measure because I also sloped the floor of the trench. The important parts of a subsurface drain like this is to wrap all the drain rock with soil fabric, not just the pipe, the holes should face downward and it should NOT tie into the roof runoff pipes because of potential backflow. Sloping is not absolutely necessary, but the outlet must always be clear. The type of drain fabric should be the large sheets — available at Truitt and White (but not Home Depot). And rigid pipes are far better than corrugated ones.

Landscape soil

There's always a cost-to-convenience breakeven point between getting trucked soil or bagged soil for minor landscaping. Trucked soil is delivered in cubic yard quantities, and there's often a minimum for an order, like three cubic yards. It costs about $40 per cubic yard and most vendors charge for delivery. Bagged soil is mostly 2-cubic-foot each, so you have to consider how many trips to make and how many bags can fit your largest vehicle.

I decided the convenience of getting the whole batch at once was worth it. A tree was waiting for it.

Drain outlet

The drilled hole at the street curb went only as deep as the thickness of the concrete, so the soil under the sidewalk had to be dug out horizontally from the other end. It's a common solution. Breaking the public sidewalk then patching it afterwards would be too much unnecessary work. The ABS (Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene) sleeve protecting the opening added a clean professional appearance.