Monday, July 9, 2012

Trials of a Lemon tree

I have a little lemon tree.  It is small and sweet and lives in a container.  It got very hot recently...lemon trees are supposed to be drought-resistant...it lost almost all it's leaves.

I went to the garden center, and asked to speak with someone who takes care of the plants and to purchase another one, for someone special.  This was what then transpired, man into overhead store speaker system, in a sarcastic tone, "hi is anyone available to come talk to this lady about the lemon trees, she's buying another one to see if she can take better care of it and she wants to save the one she has at home, that lost its leaves."

It actually at one point looked even more pitiful than this.

I looked at him as sweetly as I could, and just said, "thank you. "  The nice lady botanist came out, gave me some instructions.  I placed globe water spouts in the soil and took it out of the full sun "to baby it."  

Here we are one week later.  






Can you believe the sweet little thing is trying to bear fruit.  I had to pick it all off, to save it's energy, heartbreaking.




By the way, I had watered it during the drought, but maybe too much.  There is such a thing as too much love.

This is the new one,
look at all those pretty leaves and fruit,
on its new porch.

Anyone else had an experience like this recently?

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Last year, I actually planted a lemon seed in a small clay pot. I watered it diligently and carefully observed everyday for subtle changes. It was so exciting to see the one small leaf grow, followed by another leaf.

Wanting to give it more room, I decided to see how far down the roots came. My intention was to put in a bigger container.

And so I did. Alas the plant did not grow any bigger. My daughter seeing this, tried her luck at reviving the plant. Just recently, we saw the leaves (two of them) fall.

She is convinced to keep the leafless plant. She knows that it will grow ...somehow.

Such is her faith.

Pres. Eleni said...

That's beautiful and very much like her. So sweet, thanks for posting.