Saturday 27 April 2019

Saturday Photo: Plant a Tree Day...Or Plan to Plant One

Back when I was a kid in California Arbor Day was a big thing.  In our windswept, semi-arid neighborhood, we were encouraged to plant trees, particularly around Arbor Day which was, I see from Facebook friends, April 26, or yesterday. 

In this climate it's too early to plant trees--must wait a few weeks to make sure the ground is completely thawed and/or the floods have receded--but I've been thinking of doing that.

The lower photo is of the bumper crop of ornamental oranges we got two years ago.  The grandkids and I harvested them and Jeanne and I made marmalade which wasn't half bad.  Then we planted some of the seeds we'd salvaged in little pots.

It took about three months for them to germinate and several more months for the seedlings to grow large enough to be separated and transplanted into pots.  They now are growing to respectable size.  The other photo is of two of them, happy in our sunny entry.  (The tulips were chosen by Jeanne as an Easter gift, by the way.  She and her two cousins also each took home a little seedling on Easter.) 

We'll see how the seedlings I've kept do this summer.  The tree from which they were propagated was started maybe 20 years ago by my son.  I'll take outside as soon as the weather gets warmer.  But no question of planting it there, alas!  This is not the climate.

2 comments:

lagatta à montréal said...

We can plant other fruits, though. When I lived on rue Alma, a gentleman across the street had a pear tree; the pears were lovely, sheltered from cold by the urban microclimate, and he always gave me a basket.

I can't eat fresh, raw apples (allergy) but now we have some magnificent dry ciders (try the "Klaus" from a small ciderhouse called Alma). And so looking forward to our lovely berries.

Mary Soderstrom said...

Actually we have two pear trees in our small backyard. (You need two different kinds for cross pollination, it seems.) Some years we get lots but others the squirrels eat all there are before they're ready to pick. Have some raspberries too, but they don't bear much fruit because of the big maple two doors down.

Strawberries! Really looking forward to them!