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Eight years ago the flowering pear tree we’d planted by the bird feeders when we moved to this house died. My late mother, who loved nothing more than sitting on the deck watching our fine feathered friends, told me we needed to replace that tree because the birds missed it. Sadly, she passed two months later… and because she wanted me to make the decision what to do with her ashes, I laid part of her to rest with a beautiful tulip tree in that very spot.

Unfortunately the tree wasn’t hardy enough for the rugged Maine winters and croaked two years later. As did the flowering dogwood we planted after that and the Rose of Sharon after that. Two years ago when our neighbor gave us a few river birches to plant in front of the man cave/barn, we transplanted a flowering plum to my mother’s spot. It did well, for two years.

But now….

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There it goes.

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Undeterred and very determined to give my mother the tree she wanted… we went to an extremely expensive nursery where I paid an astronomical sum for a flowering crabapple.

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It was a beautiful specimen. Tall and bursting with good health.

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So in it went, with my mother.

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My fingers and toes are crossed this one makes it more than two years.

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Because if this one dies, I’m really going to wonder if my mother is trying to tell me something.

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