Love, bubs and life on our little farm

We planted a lovely varigated white and black Mulberry tree a few years ago and it flourished and was becoming a stunning tree.

Elka loved picking the mulberries off last Spring and we looked forward to the tree growing with her and becoming a lovely big shade tree for the side of our driveway.

However, earlier this year it copped a drift of Grazon herbicide from some weed poisoning we were doing (no where near it! It was quite surprising how sensitive it was). We sadly watched over a few weeks as the leaves yellowed and fell off one by one. We searched the branches desperately for new shoots but none could be found. We cut branches to search for sap or green rings but there was no signs of life. With great disappointment we decided it had died an untimely death and went back to the markets to buy a new small tree which we planted on the top level garden where we are starting a small orchard.

However, we couldn't bring ourselves to pull out the old tree with its sweet memories despite it being a dead eyesore, so we cut back all the branches and hoped that just maybe the Spring would show that the tree still had life in it.

We have had some lovely warm pre-Spring weather and lo and behold, with great pleasure we have spotted some new shoots on the bare branches.

So now we have two Mulberry trees! And I am so happy that next year my two little girls will be clustered around the tree picking off the juicy berries in the golden sunlight. Was definitely a nice little metaphor about not giving up hope, as cliche as that is!