Tree Envy

I have taken an accounting of my neighborhood and it is official. My house sits on the only lot without a tree on it. That may not sound like a big deal but I have some serious tree envy. The area where we live is recently developed. We built here because of its location near schools and our inability to find a standing house we liked. I have tried buying trees in the past. The first one died within one year. That was quite disappointing when you consider it cost several hundred dollars to buy and nearly as much to have planted. We watered it, buried spikes of some sort of nutritional stuff, kept the dog away, but it still died. My daughters even bought the little “Pine Tree in a Box” kits and tried growing their trees in clay pots, but they did not make it either. We bought another and tried again. After reading the instruction pamphlet carefully, we (I mean my wife) watered it on a regular schedule and again put fertilizer spikes around it in the ground. We watched it daily. The leaves stayed on through the spring…into the summer and finally dropped in the fall. Yes! Victory! We managed not to kill a tree! A general feeling of contentment settled over us that winter as the snow covered the ground. Then spring arrived. There were no buds on the tree in March but it was still kind of early. April came and the neighbors’ trees showed signs of life, but ours remained dormant. Maybe it was a late blooming breed? May came and it still looked like Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree two weeks after the Christmas Play. It was bear with no signs of life. I called the nursery where we bought it and they suggested pruning off braches that looked dead to allow the others to grow. With hack saw in hand I approached the tree. All the limbs looked dead. So I cut off the most brittle one and watched. Weeks went by and everyone else had leaves. We did not. I cut off two more branches. After waiting again nothing happened. I called the nursery and one of their experts came out. After a full fifteen seconds he informed me that my tree was dead. How could I have lost her? She was doing so well last year? Her little leaves were blowing in the wind as her branches swayed. The nice man from the nursery was consoling me by saying that sometimes these things just happen and there is no explanation. So now we sit on a grassy lot without a tree. I tell myself that it’s not a big deal. Why do I need a tree anyway? So what if everyone else has one has one. It just makes extra work in the fall with leaves to rake. At least no one can sue me because they get in an accident saying they couldn’t see the oncoming car because of my tree. In spite of these feelings, however, I look out my window and see the leaves changing color all around me and my yard is like a giant rolling golf course. Maybe one day we’ll try again, but we just are so afraid of losing another one. In the meantime, people are driving by thinking, “Why don’t they get a tree. Everyone else has one.”