The dead tree of spite.

My yard has a single sad tree.

(Pic from the short summer non-sad spell)

It’s the last one on the block to get leaves in the spring, and the first one to drop them all in the fall… so it spends much of its time looking bare and sad while the other trees around here have plenty of green.

My mom’s house 2 doors down has 3 large trees taller than the house, including 2 that were survivors of the tornado about 15 years ago that took out most of the older trees in this area. Their garage got destroyed, but the “hopping” meant that the two big trees just got their upper half buzzed off, and both have recovered to where you can’t even tell anymore

So, two summers ago my mom didn’t clear out the yard over the summer, and they ended up with 3 different volunteer trees growing in their yard close to the house that never got removed.

They had gotten big enough to not be easily pulled out, but they were too close to the foundation to just let them grow where they were and keep as trees.

So it was decided that they would be brought down here and transplanted.

Which didn’t happen the next spring when it was supposed to.

Or the summer.

And so when spring rolled around again, there was nagging (not by me) to my stepdad that these trees needed to be moved this year.

And spring started to wrap up… past the time when they should have been moved.

And the nagging continued.

And so, my stepdad declared one afternoon that he had tried but couldn’t get the trees dug up to move them, and so he had gotten the tree trimmers and cut two of them off at the ground and then dumped roundup on them.

But the third he couldn’t get to cut. So he dug it out. (Wait, you thought he couldn’t get them dug out and that’s why he was chopping them down? Yeah.. that’s the story…)

And so while I’m busy doing something that I wasn’t able to stop or take a break with, he brings it down here with my daughter tagging along, and digs a random hole in the yard… a few feet from the clothes line pole just to make sure if the tree does survive there will be future problems… and right in the line of light from the main outdoor light to the patio and door area.

And he dumps the tree in it. Not putting the root stimulator stuff in it, not digging the hole deep enough for there to be a low area around the roots for water to soak in, not using any of the 4 bags of mulch sitting by the back door… and not even putting support poles in for it until 4 or 5 days later when my mom complained about it and making the strings too loose to actually support it in wind when he did put them up.

It did get water and plant food… after a huge drama over the hose and not listening to my daughter tell him he needed to remove the attachment first resulting in him getting drenched then blaming the kid and cussing up a storm when she had tried to warn him.

So first all the leaves sort of withered…..

And now they are all gone.

And I have a large dead stick planted in the middle of my back yard.

I’ve nicknamed it the tree of spite.

It does still have some small areas where leaves were that still have a touch of green. So I suppose it’s possible it may surprise me and live.

But I’m not betting on it.

Wonder how long I’m supposed to wait before giving up on it.

Or maybe I should just let it stay there… nice symbolism for my dear close family relations.