Ashy's Arboretum

I thought that was one of the best presents I've ever had and I nurtured my baby tree as it grew more leaves and turned into a wee branch sticking out the soil.

My mate saw my appreciation and, I guess, decided there was no need to wait till my next birthday before gifting me another tree. The next was a monkey puzzle tree - two in fact. Fantastic to have, I must say. I was telling him about the monkey puzzles that grow around the west coast of Scotland where the gulf stream keeps the weather mild and damp, allowing them to thrive in parks and gardens. Presumably their native climate in the Chilean Andes is similar.

... So, I'm telling him about this and he says, 'I'll bring you one.' I thought he was joking but, sure enough, the next time he visits, he's carrying a couple of baby monkey puzzle trees and a small date palm. 'These are for you.' he says.

That took us up to four trees, but a few days ago one of the kaffir lime tree seeds I stuck in a pot and forgot about cracked and became tree number five. That was the second lime seed to sprout, but the first just raised its head and died. It took a lot of TLC to keep number two going but two weeks after popping, it's looking strong enough to make it.

Yesterday I checked the tree seeds in the fridge... This is another story, but it blends into this one - at the beginning of May, tree-friend-pal came round with some pags of tree seeds he got through the mail. These are difficult seeds, he says - they need to be kept at low temperatures for around three months before they will germinate. His fridge is full already so he brought some for our fridge. They got buried in some potting soil, in old margarine tubs with labels on. We planted  Japanese red maple, sugar maple, Korean spruce and some kind of dog-wood tree.

This morning I opened the tubs to check for mould and add a little water if they are too dry. They were all fine except the last pot which was covered with a thick layer of fine white filaments of mould. I thought it would need to go in the bin, but I poked around in the soil to see what was going on and discovered three sprouted seeds! I don't know what they are, though, because that was the last tub we filled and we were a bit drunk and just threw all the seeds that were left into the one tub. So the sprouts are either Korean blue spruce, red maple or sugar maple. Two look the same and one looks different. Trees number six, seven and eight. But I forgot about the big lemon tree that's been there all the time. I grew it from a seed about three years ago. Nine trees all together. And that's great. Now we have the makings of a small home forest.