Sunny, Sweaty and Sad Day

I have a hard time letting go. Today I finally admitted to myself that my two favourite fruit trees are dead, I will replace them, and move on. (I don't remember if my Rainier Cherry and Fuyu Persimmon trees were my favourites when I first bought them, but they have been ever since I've feared their loss.)

The weather the last few days has been absolutely amazing, brilliantly sunny yet very cold (the ground is frozen in the mornings, and all day in shady areas). On my walkabout yesterday I snapped the few remaining branches on my persimmon, which on the surface appeared full & alive, but inside were dead wood. Same story with the cherry (photo right). They died last summer. I had left them in, hoping that they were just traumatized, and would find the strength to continue.

I could go on about our landscaper who, after planting the other trees in February, abandoned us, with our truckloads of soil in our upper yard (preventing the two last trees from being planted in), and how it took me months of repeatedly phoning to hear his excuse of the week, before I finally hired another landscaper to finish and turf the upper yard, and how those poor trees dropped all their leaves once they were moved to their final location in June. I could, but today is my day to let go and move on.

I was encouraged to phone and find that the garden centre where I originally purchased them has replacement trees already in stock, and Gardenworks in Burnaby has the Rainier Cherry, and awaits the Fuyu Persimmon in about a month. Armed with that knowledge, I was happy to brave the cold and prepare both holes for the re-planting. If I'm still feeling up to it, I may even pick up the cherry after the kids come home from school today, and plant it in. If not (every time I pick up the shovel I seem to be asking for some pain in my neck or shoulders), I can rest assured that I already have a massage appointment booked for Monday morning.

The photo on left is some of my healthy trees (from front to back : Bartlett pear, mystery apple, and Lapin cherry), with daffodils and tulips poking up in the middle of their rock-edged borders.