Thursday, May 8, 2008

A Tree Grows in Gruppieville

I like trees. Some may even call me a tree hugger. Now that the fact has been established you should know that I detest the Black Walnut tree.

Right on the property line, my neighbor has a huge Black Walnut tree that drops thousands a stain-filled nuts in my year every fall. The branches hang over their garage. Picture the thousands of black and oozy nuts tumbling down the garage and thudding into my yard completely missing their side of the property line.

Every day this fall I filled dozens of wheelbarrow with black walnuts in a futile attempt to save my lawn and bushes. My hands were black for months. Ultimately, the evil tree won.

In my own yard I have one little, sad tree. A young Black Walnut. It must not have developed enough to produce nuts, but I am sure that they are coming sometime soon.


All winter long I gave the tree the evil eye hoping the snow would end it's short life. No luck. So I did what any mother would do and let my four year-old have at it.

Little Guy may only weigh forty pounds, but give him a hammer, some pliers and a few sticks and he can sure take care of a tree. Ultimately Little Guy took down two branches and a large strip of bark than circumnavigated the tree.


Fast forward to last weekend. The local nursery was having a tree sale. $150 for a beautiful, nut-free Flowering Bradford Pear. It flowers in the spring, only grows to about twenty-five feet and does not produce nuts. Did I mention that it doesn't make stainy nuts?

After visiting the nursery hubby and I visited the big box hardware store for a few screws. (get your mind out of the gutter) There before us was a huge row of Flowering Bradford Pear trees priced at $9.98.

$9.98!! As much as I love to support local businesses, I could buy fifteen trees for what the local nursery was charging for their sale price.

Long story short, the local nursery charged me $30 in delivery charges and gave me a store credit for the rest of the price. Anybody need some mulch?

Oh yeah, I forgot...my little tree isn't a Black Walnut like we thought.

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