I Bought a Tree!

In a year or two, I'll be seeing something like this from my kitchen window.

Yesterday I went to Ontario Orchards in Oswego, NY and bought a tree for my backyard. I had some particular needs in mind, and after hours of web-searching I had a pretty good idea of what would be appropriate, but it is different when you are walking through a nursery full of beautiful trees.

I stopped to look longingly at some Japanese maples. I think they are so graceful, and I love their red foliage. Unfortunately, they are slow-growing trees, and one of my needs was reasonably fast growth. As I explained to the friendly man at the nursery, I will probably only be living where I am for about six more years. I don't see any point in buying a tree that is 3 feet tall and having it be 4 feet tall when I am packing to leave. And large slow-growing trees are expensive to buy. It stands to reason: If a tree grows slowly, it takes a long time to get it to a reasonable size, which means the grower has had to take care of it for a long time. Time equals money. Still, I looked at a Japanese maple that was about 15 feet tall. $400, the tag said. That's a lot, and then I would have to pay to have it planted. No, better look at something a little more in my line.

Actually, I had more or less decided ahead of time that I would buy a flowering crabapple tree. They are not really big trees, but they grow reasonably quickly. They have lovely flowers in the spring and fruit that attracts birds. I could afford a flowering crabapple, and it would be pretty. I had considering buying a white birch. They don't have showy flowers, but the bark is beautiful, and they are quite fast growers. There are two things I don't like about birches, however. The first is that they often have multiple trunks, and the second is that they are pretty fragile. In our climate, with all the snow and ice, I could foresee broken limbs or the whole tree coming down in an ice storm. No, a flowering crabapple would be better.

As I wandered through the nursery, I saw many trees of varying sizes. My eye was drawn repeatedly to quite a big tree among the flowering trees for sale. It was an ornamental cherry tree with, so the tag said, pink flowers. It was more than 15 feet high, with quite a thick trunk and lower branches, and it cost $250. Cherry trees belong to the genus prunus, which also includes plums, peaches, and apricots. They are quite fast growers, and they have lovely white or pink flowers in the spring. Birds eat the fruit, of course, which is a plus. (Cherry bird poop on the porch and the driveway will be a minus, but I'll live with that.) Everyone has heard of cherry blossom time in Japan. What could be more beautiful than that?

I was convinced. This tree had size, speed of growth, beauty, and a reasonable price. "I'll buy it," I told the nursery man, and he made out the invoice. I did buy it, and in a few weeks they will come to plant it in my backyard. I can hardly wait!