the daily snivel

A central feature of my late grandmother's home was an orange tree that she grew from a seed. It was six feet tall and older than I was, and festooned with brilliant, succulent dark green leaves that smelled of oranges if you rubbed them between your fingers. The tree always had a prominent place in the sun, and in the summer it would go outside in the enclosed sun deck, where it would flourish in the intense daytime heat and light.

The last year of her life brought a decline in my grandmother's ability to attend to small things. She had to sell her house and move to a retirement home that winter, and only shortly before she died. I had moved out by that point, as she badly wanted to see me be independent, and but came back to visit as often as I could. One crisp night in late autumn, I'd visited and realized that no one had moved the orange tree out of the sun deck. I looked outside and saw it, leaves all wilted and black, looking as dead as a tree ever managed. In a panic, I ran it back into the warm house in the hopes that it might recover, but things seemed grim.

Because our grandmother was in no condition to look after her beloved tree, my sister brought the tree to her mother-in-law's house, as she had a tremendous knack with plants, and it was believed that if anyone could tend to the tree and restore it to life, she could.

And, wouldn't you know it, she worked a miracle. By spring, the tree was sprouting new branches and leaves and looking wonderful. The large branches could no longer sport leaves, but shoots would grow out of them that could, and it seemed very healthy and happy overall. The tree became extremely important to me after my grandmother's death, as it reminded me of her life and her capacity for love and nurturing. I've had it in the seven years since she passed away, and have strived to keep it happy and healthy. I've had quite a bit of luck, though I find that it always takes a spell in the winter and loses a great many leaves. Apparently it drops leaves when it receives too much water (or not enough), and I suppose the cold changes its metabolic needs.

Still, I worry that one day my luck will run out and it will lose one leaf too many. The tree will never fully recover its past splendor, as too much of it died when it froze. That's why I've decided to clone it. By that, of course, I mean I took a cutting and am now attempting to coax it to root and became a new tree that can grow alongside its parent, while having no dead sections. Last week, when I took so much time off, I got the chance to do a little puttering around the house, and since I had to go out to buy cold remedies anyway, I made a stop at the hardware store and bought some rooting hormone. The rooting hormone is actually a chemical that encourages cuttings to grow roots so that they can support themselves and develop into independent plants.

A week later, my cutting is still just a little green stick, but the important thing is that it is green, and I'm hoping that the coming weeks will see it begin to develop its own root system and begin growing into a proper little baby tree. The coming weeks should also bring renewed warmth and sunshine as spring gradually returns, and hopefully this will encourage it as well. I'll keep you posted.