Sometimes, president's duties require a shovel

There are worse things one could inherit from an outgoing president, but it was a matter to confront nonetheless.

So Wednesday, President Barack Obama planted a tree in the same spot President George W. Bush had done so last year and another president had done more than a century before.

But don't blame Bush. The scarlet oak the 43rd president installed on the North Lawn "did not take," the White House said, so a littleleaf linden was used Wednesday.

"This is a nice looking tree, don't you think?" Obama said as he approached the scene, accompanied by retired Rear Adm. Stephen W. Rochon, chief usher of the White House, about 5:30 p.m.

"We've got to get a couple, do a little work here," Obama said, reaching for a ceremonial shovel. Nine times he plunged it into the topsoil.

In a minute, he was done, fulfilling an obligation of planting his first tree on the White House grounds.

"This is a little easier than it should be," Obama joked.

The littleleaf linden, already standing at a sturdy 25 feet, now stands at the far front corner of the North Lawn.

It was Benjamin Harrison, a farm boy from Ohio and the nation's 23rd president, who first saw the potential of the scrap of land. He planted a scarlet oak there in 1889, the year he took office.

The oak stood there for 118 years until, in 2007, its aging core succumbed to a heavy rainstorm.

President Bush and first lady Laura Bush replaced it with another scarlet oak on April 9, 2008, according to a plaque on the shovel Obama used Wednesday.