Those driving by our house may have noticed a tall stranger in our backyard.
He can be seen just off our porch by our back windows, rocking back and forth as he stands silently. He’s also a heavy drinker.
Before you call the cops in alarm, he’s a Chinese pistache tree.
Our gracious landlord agreed to let us plant a tree as the only one in the yard was an older pecan tree which has a ton of bare perches for the birds we feed.. and not much else.
After a lot of research, Wyndi landed on the pistache tree because it seemed to be everything we wanted—a hardy tree that grows well in Texas and changes color in the fall. It has the bonus of growing fruit that birds love that doesn’t naturally drop to the ground.
After getting a friend to agree to help me plant it, I talked to Paige at Texas Sage, who agreed it was a good choice and put me on the order list.
As Murphy’s Law would dictate, it arrived in the busy month of May on a pretty hot afternoon.
My friend and I picked up the delivery van thinking we may have to squeeze it in.
After paying for the tree, I asked where it was.
“It’s tied to the silo,” I was told.
I went over and slowly looked up the tree like it was a model who just entered a movie on late night cable.
Good news: no squeezing required.
Bad news: We have to go get the trailer from my parents and nobody remembers where the trailer hitch is.
As Dad and I racked our brains and looked in all the wrong place, my friend who didn’t know where it was, walked into the shed and immediately retrieved it.
By the time, I reminded myself proper driving and reversing procedures with a trailer (or the “good enough” version of it), we had made three trips between Texas Sage, my house and my parents’ house.
Fortunately the digging and planting went fast because we worked well together and because we had the right materials. That happens when your wife is the daughter of a 50+ year florist.
Her parentage might have something to do with her green thumbs and the many plants (all of which have names) that have come from her mom, Texas Sage and Country Flower Plant Farm.
That includes a Christmas cactus that’s in a pot that says ‘I wet my plants.’
Wyndi proved the accuracy of this statement this week. We got home after dark and needed to water so she put our tree on a slow drip for about an hour and then went outside to turn it off.
The next morning, I walked outside and heard a stream. I figured out where it was when I took my second step off the porch and sank a bit.
Our apologies for the low water pressure on the north side of town this weekend, because Wyndi was tired enough that she forgot the sage wisdom of righty tighy, left loosey.
At least, our backyard lurker is happy. I haven’t got the measuring tape out but he seems to have grown about three to four feet in the last month and is starting to branch out.
It is taking a lot of care but there’s something worthwhile about watching it grow, even if it does occasionally drink too much.