Eye Candy Friday
About 20 years ago Grant took up bonsai as a hobby. He didn't get all that far with it, but during his first flush of enthusiasm a friend with a mature female Japanese maple in her front yard gave him half a dozen or so of its (her?) babies to work with. The lone survivor of his fiendish experiments, then maybe a foot high, moved with us to our current house. Our first summer here was extremely dry, and we didn't water until it was almost too late for the grass, not to mention several of the plants in the landscaped area where we'd planted the maple. All of its leaves had curled up and turned brown. That fall Grant saw me covering its roots with leaves and grass clippings and asked, "What are you doing? It's dead."
"Probably," I said, "but just in case."
Reports of its demise were greatly exaggerated.
See the brown leaves under and around it? Miss B and I raked today — and raked, and raked, and raked. The real eye candy for me — nearly all the leaves having now fallen off the Japanese maple, not to mention the &#$*^!! oaks in and around our front yard — is being able to see the grass again, but I can't show you that, because by the time we finished it was dark.
I'll tell you one thing: if I raked leaves for two hours every day I'd be in much better shape. I'd also be clinically insane, but at least the grounds of the asylum would look good.
"Probably," I said, "but just in case."
Reports of its demise were greatly exaggerated.
See the brown leaves under and around it? Miss B and I raked today — and raked, and raked, and raked. The real eye candy for me — nearly all the leaves having now fallen off the Japanese maple, not to mention the &#$*^!! oaks in and around our front yard — is being able to see the grass again, but I can't show you that, because by the time we finished it was dark.
I'll tell you one thing: if I raked leaves for two hours every day I'd be in much better shape. I'd also be clinically insane, but at least the grounds of the asylum would look good.
posted by Lucia at
6:20 PM
7 Comments:
We have very few trees in our yard, a small katsura and some pine and spruce on the edge... a small apple and pear. But we get LOADS of maple and oak leaves from all the neighbors. I don't mind, because we also get some good things from those trees... shade, privacy.
By
Lisa/knitnzu, at 7:36 PM
I'm so glad it survived. I love those little trees.
Yeah, not a fan of raking, either. I tend to mow and pick them up that way.
By
Cookie, at 7:41 PM
Lovely! A Japanese maple is on my wish list :)
By
joyknits, at 11:59 PM
Japanese maples are some of the loveliest trees. We had a similar Bring out your Dead moment with one here that is now thriving!
By
Carol, at 6:29 AM
It's how we used to stay in shape. That is such a lovely tree you have. I posted about the damn oaks yesterday. Now I curse them less.
By
Laurie, at 7:29 AM
Someone in the little town where our public library is has a beautiful large specimen in their yard. Every year I love to watch that tree turn glowing red. They are gorgeous.
(Verification word:Im bear. No, really, I'm not - I've had my coffee!)
By
Alwen, at 8:50 AM
LOVE Japanese Maples. SO many varieties! Here in town there are some venerable ones in front of the old mansions from the turn of the previous century that are pure works of art. The lower leaves have been trimmed up to show the structure of the trunks. Very beautiful!
Raking is great aerobic exercise, but so is runnning for your life from a pack of junkyard pitbulls. Surely there are gentler approaches to cardio-vascular health?
By
roxie, at 11:30 AM
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