I wasn’t going to blog about this but I did a post about the Queen’s passing in 2021, so I really couldn’t get away with ignoring this one – or could I?
And, being the consummate gardener and that I am, of course needed to turn it into a garden metaphor. By categorizing “it” this way, I imagine in some ways it helps me adjust and heal in my own way, so here it goes:
It Was Supposed to Be a Good Thing
When we moved to our new house here in South Seattle in 2010, there it was a young corkscrew willow tree in the neighbor’s backyard, just on the other side of our fence. It was about 15 feet tall at that time and we could only see the canopy. I always wanted a willow tree so I took it as a good sign – my yard wasn’t big enough for such a majestic tree so, I was happy to admire it from my yard.
But, the neighbors never took care of the pruning and maintenance so it eventually grew up, grew out, got really messy, held on to a TON of dead branches and threw a lot of shade on a new garden bed on our side of the fence. Corkscrew willow trees have a growth rate of 2 to 3 feet a year so without diligent, yearly pruning, it quickly became a year-round hassle.
Ya Can’t Always Get What You Want
The tree constantly shed branches every time the wind blew, and would consistently drop leaves and dead branches on to my garden bed below it, smothering and breaking the flowers and the foliage. The raspberry patch that I was trying to start, along with the established blueberry bushes that we inherited with the house, were now getting too much shade from “the beast.”
Its big branches grew to shade the lawn while the roots took over the garden bed. The bigger branches would break randomly with our windy winter weather and it would often-times break the fence too – I’m not sure how many times Steve fixed it over the years. I had to move some of the more valuable plants from the new garden bed, which left gaping hole for years because that garden space was so unreliable.
One year, the tree’s roots that found our garden bed infiltrated the sewer pipes that served the entire block along the fence line. By a stroke of luck, it was the city’s problem to fix that or it would have cost us thousands of dollars out of our own pocket. Willows love water, so it wasn’t surprising the tree found its own water source. It was just a fact that wasn’t considered when the neighbors chose the tree for that spot, (“right plant for the right place,” is the golden garden rule for a reason.)
But I Love(d) Willows…
The tree grew to be a not-such-a-good-thing after all. The shade eventually stressed-out my raspberry patch that attracted an infestation that could only be fixed my destroying the entire crop. My old blueberry bushes were getting way too much shade and I wasn’t getting many berries from them at all. (Robin was much more efficient at plucking them when they were ripe than I was, so I was left short for a few summers.)
I couldn’t use that space as nursery space to store my plants for my business, because of the solid shade in the summer, and the mess that branches and leaves left for the rest of the year. Steve tried a couple of times to prune it back and at least clean-up our view of it – but it eventually grew too tall for us.
But, it was a willow! One of my favorite trees! I always wanted a willow tree – and the corkscrew branches are really, really fun to use for crafting things for my full-sized garden. Did I tell you yet that I loved willows?
We were stuck with it. There was nothing I could do about it because it was the neighbor’s tree. My romantic idea of a Willow tree in the backyard was just that – something that I always wanted but could/would never work.
It was Earth Day in 2022, when the neighbors finally had the tree cut up and taken down. It took me some time to get used to so much sunshine and light – it was really nice. And that big, bulky thing that was always in my peripheral vision was GONE.
Let the Sun Shine In
Now the sun shines in my backyard. The windstorms are no longer a worry, there’s nothing to take down the fences in the middle of the night. I don’t have to constantly pick up the branches and rake the leaves out of my perennials. There are no random tree roots to deal with. The lawn has returned, lush and green in that area. I can grow all kinds of things in that garden bed now. My old blueberry bushes are loving it and there are enough berries for me and the Robins. An extra-added bonus that I hadn’t realized I missed: I can see the sunrise and moon rise.
RIP Dad: you (and your “mistress”) were like that gnarly, huge, overgrown willow tree, always in my peripheral vision that cut off my light and discouraged any new growth. But now I can see the sunshine and the moonrise, and there is plenty of room for my roots to grow.
Glad to get this done. I’ll be back to my regular programming on the next post. Thank you for reading!
