Mission: Impossible

I’ll go out on a limb here and say that you probably did not expect to see this. That's Connor when he was about seven. If you look carefully on the couch there, you’ll see our Metro’s sweet face. God, I miss our little pup.

Well, good to see you. Hope you had a grrrrreat weekend!

xo


















What? I can’t hear you. What?? (Ya like the way I assume if I say it LOUDER, I’ll hear you? Yeah, me too.)

Oh. The tree. Did I mention that I used to grow banana trees in my living room? Oh, c’mon…like you’ve never done it.

Here in Kathrynville, we’re big on giving it the ‘ole college try. And to answer your next question (I know you guys so well….ain’t it great?) yes, we gave it a name. “DC”, short for Dwarf Cavendish, had the capacity to grow to 10-12’ and then fruit, under the proper circumstances….which was supposed to be…I dunno….maybe Florida?

But. In my defense:

• I had a lot of windows!
• I love anything tropical!
• I could sit and read a book underneath a banana tree in my living room!
• I had cathedral ceilings, so they could grow even taller if they wanted to!
• No-one told me they couldn’t be grown indoors…in New Yawk!

Do you know what the problem is with growing banana trees indoors?

Well:

• They need lots of humidity….something you don’t see often indoors in the winter. Otherwise, you get spider-mites and they’ll kill your tree.
• You have to keep re-potting them into something larger or they’ll get root-bound and die.
• Watering ‘em is an exact science. Too little, they’ll die. Too much? Ditto.
• Did you know that when banana trees fruit, they die? Uh-huh. That’s why they produce “pups” (offspring to take their place, which you need to separate from the mom, which is how I wound up with these):

Alas, DC died before she gave us any naners. But we loved that tree, dammit.

A few years ago, I tried to grow a lemon tree as well. This little bitty tree and I went through two years of me attempting to nurture it and it doing its best to die peacefully just stay alive.

See how it’s all hunched over? See those three leaves? The poor thing was pouring all its effort into ripening that one little lemon....and you'd think it was reproducing a golden egg by the way I hovered and fussed over that thing. It was like the little lemon-tree that could...

See how I artfully propped it up with pieces of bark from outside so it could finish ripening? I’ll bet you’d never have noticed that if I hadn’t pointed it out.

It fully ripened and we had a big ceremony, followed by a huge debate as to what final purpose our singular home-grown-two-years-in-the-making lemon should have. I remember Taylor voted to squeeze it on shrimp cocktail…Connor wanted to squeeze it into some Pepsi. I recall my protests of ,“Stop talking about squeezing it, for God's sake! Is that all you guys think about?”…for I’d become quite protective of my little charge. In the end, we cut it three ways and everyone did their own thing, with me opting to save each and every seed (for future generations of healthy stock, which I eventually threw away 'cause they got moldy). I recall making the world’s smallest glass of lemonade with my third. So, it got squeezed anyway. The plant died the next week and I just didn’t have the heart to give it another go.

Or, so I thought. See this?

Yup. It's the product of my planting a seed from a key lime. (Note to self: I really should re-pot that thing.)

I've loved every one my fruit trees. They remind me that anything is possible…especially if you don’t realize that you’re attempting the virtually impossible.

Virtually, maybe. Completely impossible?? I beg to differ.