This beautiful old apple tree is planted in the parking strip in my neighborhood.
It’s lovely for most of the year, with its spreading branches, silvery bark and gently fragrant spring blossoms. Unfortunately, it’s grown to tall for its fruit to be picked easily, even with a stepladder, so during the fall, most of it drops to the ground.
The owners put up this sign, hoping someone would cart away at least some of the mess, which is no doubt attracting some fun critters (Seattle is a water city, and where there’s water, boy are there a lot of rats!):
Um, I don’t know about you, but rotten-apple pie is not exactly tops on my list of favorite baked goods…
I think this is a pretty good advertisement for dwarf varieties. (Obviously, I’m not blaming the tree for growing to its proper size! It’s just in the wrong place.) Fruit trees take a lot of work, pruning, thinning and so forth, and once one gets away from you it’s hard to get it back in check. Across our back alley, some folks had a neighborhood heirloom apple tree bequeathed to them years ago as a smallish transplant – now it’s a great, huge mess to deal with but they’d feel horribly guilty if they cut it down.
What about you – is there something in your garden that needs offing but you just can’t bring yourself to do it in?
