Who Knew Thievery Had Such Blurred Lines?

We've been in this house for 6 years now, and there is no landscaping at the front of the house. The backside of our abode sports a patio, pond, several gardens, brick and stone pathways and all manner of fun. I know where my priorities are. We spend all our time relaxing out back rather than sitting awkwardly in the front yard watching traffic go by. Plus, when we built, there were plans for a wrap around porch. I figured that I wasn't going to landscape only to have it dug up in a few years when the porch went on. The 5 year plan morphed into the 10 year plan for the porch, and then got nixed altogether. It's now time to do something about the ugly that everyone sees from the road.

So I was perusing the trees at Lowe's, oohing and aaaahing over all the fun that I could have, when I spied a beauty of a specimen just waiting for me to take it home. It was small, and bent and twisted in almost painful ways. I loved it. Immensely. Right up until I saw the $80 price tag. I am the Queen of Cheap, and practicality raised its ugly head, telling me to just walk away already. I tried. I really did. As I was taking a step away my eyes lingered on it's beauty, and then I saw it. A branch of that beautimus tree was snapped off and dangling. It detracted from the beauty of the thing, and because I'm a gardener at heart, I reached out and broke it off so as to avoid the unsightly. A tree has to look it's best to sell itself, and dead, hanging branches won't make a good impression.

As I was holding that twig in my hand, wondering where a trash can would be (because I'm a mom, and we never just toss things onto the ground), Becky said, "you should plant that and see if it would grow." Much as I loved that idea (and wished I would have thought of it on my own), I told her that it wouldn't work because the branch was dead. At the break, the inside of the twig was brown. Never a good sign. But in order to teach, I showed her how to check for signs of life. "See, if you use your fingernail and scrape the skin off just a bit, a live tree will be green underneath. Something dead like this will be brown." Except that dead twig was green when I scraped back some bark.

My heart started racing, as did my mind. First of all, I had a live cutting off an $80 tree that I muchly coveted right there in my hand. Secondly, I needed to get it into some growth hormone STAT. Thirdly, did I just steal? I mean, I had no intention of taking that branch to grow. I was just trying to help out by making things look tidy. Should I just throw it away? Should I ask an employee to salvage it? Should I tape it back onto the tree? Should I run, screaming, from the building?

So now I have a stick in a flower pot in the middle of my dining room table. From what I understand, its chances of growing are pretty good. Someday, I may or may not have a walking stick tree in my landscape. And I may or may not have stolen it.

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4 comments:

Michelle said...

LOVE it. And no, I can't stop laughing at your guilty conscience. I'm in the "it's all about intent" category in this type of situation. That said, I'm not going to nurseries looking for broken off branches ;)

imbeingheldhostage said...

We are SO alike. I hope you can continue to enjoy looking at it and think of it as a salvage, not a steal (they would have trampled that twig all day until it was swept up later and thrown into the garbage).

Maybe you could hook up a "tree cam" so we can watch the growth with you? ;-)

Trisha said...

It is worth a try! However, for a minute, I thought the marshmallow stick was the stick you brought home with you!

JennyH said...

Those trees are cool looking. $80 is a big chunk of change. Hopeful your non-stolen branch grows fast for ya.