My 99 year old abuelo (maternal grandfather) says that someone has to be the one to plant a tree. Many years ago, in my childhood home, my mother was contemplating planting a few tropical fruit trees from seed and worried it would take too long to see them give fruit. Despite the naysayers, my abuelo said, "go ahead and plant them. Someone has to be the one to plant the tree even if someone else benefits from the fruit." Truer words were never spoken.
Mr. Maricucu and I bought our home about 5 years ago, our first home. Typical builders, cleared the lot and left not even one tree. It's no fun in North Carolina summers to have no shade. About two years ago I finally decided to get at least a couple of trees in but having no funds for mature trees I bought two oak saplings from the Arbor Foundation. They couldn't have been more than three feet tall and wispy as all get out but they were healthy and we (actually Mr. Maricucu) dug the holes and planted them. Today I was looking out the window at our trees. One (having been planted in a pretty lush, fertile area of the yard) is over 8 feet tall! We now have in our yard what I thought would have taken several years, shade! My grandfather was definitely right - someone has to do the planting and thankfully this time the someone planting also benefited from the fruit.
My mother did eventually see fruit on her trees as well. She says that in the last few years at the old home the fruit was pretty abundant. Kind of reminds me that we parents do a lot of long term fruit planting as well. Fruit that likely won't be of benefit to us but is worth it nonetheless.
Mr. Maricucu and I bought our home about 5 years ago, our first home. Typical builders, cleared the lot and left not even one tree. It's no fun in North Carolina summers to have no shade. About two years ago I finally decided to get at least a couple of trees in but having no funds for mature trees I bought two oak saplings from the Arbor Foundation. They couldn't have been more than three feet tall and wispy as all get out but they were healthy and we (actually Mr. Maricucu) dug the holes and planted them. Today I was looking out the window at our trees. One (having been planted in a pretty lush, fertile area of the yard) is over 8 feet tall! We now have in our yard what I thought would have taken several years, shade! My grandfather was definitely right - someone has to do the planting and thankfully this time the someone planting also benefited from the fruit.
My mother did eventually see fruit on her trees as well. She says that in the last few years at the old home the fruit was pretty abundant. Kind of reminds me that we parents do a lot of long term fruit planting as well. Fruit that likely won't be of benefit to us but is worth it nonetheless.
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2 comments:
Beautiful post! We have plenty of shade trees here, but are in the process of prepping fruit tree seeds to plant in the spring . . . Then the waiting begins!
Oh Carrie yay! What kind of fruit trees are you planting? I'd love to augment our shade trees right now with a few fruits trees in the next couple of years.
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