Creative Sources

A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they shall never sit.

— Greek Proverb

How I came to find the source of a seedling design.

It was early spring in the gardening. The time when the compost is spread and over wintered seeds start to sprout. There was a weed sticking out of the soil in the middle of the cabbage plants. I gave it a yank.

Up came the whole plant. Then I saw it, an almond? No it was the inside of a peach pit. Peaches that drop to the ground, are discarded into the compost pile, and this one started to grow. I carried the sprout over to the peach tree and examined the leaf. Yes, looked just like a peach leaf. So I potted it up and set it aside.

If you want to go deeper into the story. I found several of these peach seedlings. I potted them up. Later to find out that a chipmunk dug the potted peach tree up and ate the pit and left the broken off leaves. Then I put the potted seedlings in rodent-proof cages. Eventually the seedlings grew over a foot high. For the winter, I protected the potted peach trees in a corner of the yard, only to have a deer come in and browse off the tender new branches leaving a mere stick coming out to the pot.

So I let the stick grow. Now it seems to be branching low on the stem, which is how it should be pruned anyway, flat on the top and open in the center. Nature may have done  me a favor. Time will tell.

I await next season to see if indeed I have new peach trees to plant.

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