The Orphan Tree

 Several years ago my sister-in-law, who is a master gardener, gave my husband a cutting from a lemon tree that she grows in a pot. She lives in the northeast and puts the tree outside in the summer and takes it into her living room for the colder months. She has grown several from cuttings and all produce a few lemons throughout the year. My husband does fairly well growing plants, houseplants as well as vegetables outside in containers on our deck in the summer. The little lemon tree he got from the master gardener has not lived up to his expectations. Let me just say that he is a kind, gentle, musical, soft spoken man, and mostly patient. His patience with the little lemon tree, however grew thin. In spite of following the advice of his sister, the tree did not flower, ever. It became infested with mites, the leaves turned yellow and fell off at an alarming rate, yet it continued to get taller. It lived, but didn’t flourish. After several years, and being de-mited, the leaves looked better, but still there were no signs of flowers and therefore no producing fruit. It was moved a few times in different parts of the living room but nothing helped, not even being in the bay window which faces west and so gets plenty of sun. So, after all those years he went to a local nursery and bought a lemon tree that was flowering and showed signs of producing fruit. It is smaller than the one in the window, but was given the place of honor and the disappointing one was put aside. Poor little tree, abandoned for a showier model.

I took to caring for the cast aside tree, and I call it the orphan tree. It sits on a small accent table in front of the window where once it had the place of honor. Next to this tree is where Hillary sat to watch tv. I put little fairy lights on it at Christmas, and she liked to look at it. The tree is still growing, and its leaves don’t fall off. It still shows no signs of flowering or producing fruit, but I like it and have no expectations of it except for it to decorate my living room. I put a ribbon bow from one of Hillary’s funeral arrangements on it, I think she would like that. She always loved seeing trees and watching the leaves flutter in the breeze when we were outside. I will still put lights on the orphan tree at Christmas, and take care of it. As for the new tree? So far it produced 3 lemons, 2 of which I used in shrimp scampi. They were very tasty.

This is the orphan tree.

                                  The tree in this picture was outside a hotel we stayed at in Tennessee.