Try to pretend that photo's a depth-of-field experiment and therefore artistic-like. Also? Try to imagine we've already repainted the pink rabbit hutch to its proper barn red.
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I am so beyond excited for the cherries on our new little trees. Last year's planting of the orchard was a milestone for us. This year the cherry trees are the clear overachievers among the spindly saplings. Thank goodness they all survived last summer's drought and last winter's cold snaps. The apples and pears and plums (o my) are looking healthy but fruitless. It's another good lesson in delayed gratification. Sometimes the lessons I need are my least favorite.
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Unfortunately over the winter I lost my Meyer Lemon to a string of seven-degree nights. The tree was a gift from a friend and was actually bearing lemons along with heavenly scented flowers so the loss of it was super disappointing. (Read: I left the blackened tree up until just last weekend, when I finally felt the pressure to give it a proper funeral.) I did replace the lemon tree with a much, much smaller version that can come indoors in the cold weather. As my brother would say, it's on the ten-year track to becoming a real tree.
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More of that patience training is in my future it seems.
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Our Brown Turkey Fig tree is right on track for this area, however; it's just now budding out with what should soon be huge leathery leaves on a five-foot-tall unassuming stick of wood. It's miraculous, really, that something as delicious as a fig should come from (frankly, I hope the tree doesn't repay my compliment by refusing to bear fruit) such an ugly wintertime specimen.
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One more new-to-us tree on the property is the dogwood. Oh, how I love a dogwood tree. Ours is sporting three tiny blossoms. I wonder how the nursery forced it to display those big, fat, glowing white bracts last year? Maybe I need to build it a little shelter. Or, you know, maybe I need to consider that some dogwood trees don't appear to bloom for years after transplanting.
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Practice patience. Focus on the positive. Bring the lemon tree inside in the winter.
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All lessons I could have learned by reading books, made real by my garden.
3 comments:
I still have 2 healthy trees from the EIGHT we planted in the last 2 years. Ugh!! A couple fell victim to a escaped goat, one was fatally injured during a mowing incident, and yet another just fell over in a windstorm! Yes - patience is something that must be learned... by planting trees and having children.
I hope everything comes up beautifully for you this year.
Lydia
Meyer lemons are among my favorite things on Earth - I'm so sorry yours didn't make it. And I'm with you on the figs...makes my mouth water to think about them. We used to eat them right off the tree until we were half sick.
Patience is elusive around here, too. Maybe we can learn together:).
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