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Confession #27 The Christmas Tree Killer

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indoor trees

A Forever Christmas Tree

It was two Christmases ago that we decided to pare back the decorations in the house. With that in mind, we also thought it would be great to have a forever Christmas tree, rather than buying a fresh one each year.

Not wanting a fake tree, we decided to pick up a little Norfolk Island Pine tree instead. They are great for growing indoors. We found a nice selection at a local big box store early in December, all sparkly and ready for decorating. They were small but we knew it would not take long until we had a nice size tree that we would never need to replace.

Or so we thought.

The poor thing barely made it through Christmas, let alone the new year. Mandolin suggested we buy a fake tree on sale, but I refused to give up so easily.

And so I doomed myself to repeat killing a tree the following year. This second one held on a wee bit longer. I repotted it and fed it, but it was obvious by Christmas day it was not long for this world.

Admittedly I am not great with houseplants, but I can keep them alive longer than just a few weeks.

We stopped in the same store yesterday, and as we happened by the tree display I commented “Should we buy another tree to kill?”

Just as Mandolin opened his mouth to respond, a woman standing nearby said “I’ve had one of those in my house for years. It’s huge.”

Now I never miss an opportunity to talk about my favorite subject and to learn more about growing anything. Mandolin wandered off and the woman and I discussed what she did vs. what I did. We examined the trees that were there and it turns out some of them were not sparkly at all. “Oh mine didn’t have anything sprayed on it,” she said. “Mine was more like this one.”

And she pointed to an untreated tree with obvious signs of new growth. You could see the difference in the health of the trees. The sparkly ones already looked like they were soon to be goners, the untreated trees were greener and had a lot of new growth.

“Oh, look at this,” the woman said, “This has three trunks, just like mine.”

That was the clincher right there. Maybe it wasn’t me after all. Maybe the sparkly stuff killed those trees.

I thanked her for her help, picked up the tree she had pointed to, and set about trying to find my husband.

“I knew you would be buying a tree,” he said, “After I heard what that woman told you about hers.”

“It’s a matter of gardener’s honor,” I answered.

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