Weeping Santa Rosa

2 years ago, as I was browsing through a Raintree Nursery catalog, I spied an intriguing little picture of a weeping, flowering tree. Even though it's an ornamental, it still produces some fruit. How convenient! I thought, and I couldn't get the gorgeous tree out of my head. It's such a pretty little thing; doesn't get too tall to be annoying or intrusive, gives up plums, and has a 'weeping tendency'. Oh please, Daddy? This isn't like any of our other trees. You like trees too. :halo: 


Well, we ordered the tree. The UPS man brought it up to the door and rang the door bell. EEK! MY TREE IS HERE! Why I was so excited about a tree, I do not know. I cut open the box to behold a stick. Actually, two sticks. One was a long piece of bamboo, the other was my tree. How on earth is this supposed to grow if it's just a stick with a couple of scraggly roots and a piece of bamboo to support it? We planted it anyway (right next to the front door, I might add), and shortly after a few buds started to swell up. Those few buds became funky branches with a couple leaves on it.

I must admit, I really thought that the thing wouldn't survive the first year. Much to my surprise, it came back with more vigor than before. But no flowers. How is it supposed to produce fruit if it doesn't have flowers?! Oh, well... It's still a cool little funky tree, and it's mine.

This year, as I watched life emerging from the dead of winter, my tree started to produce some buds that didn't look exactly like leaf buds. Could it be? Is my little tree actually flowering?! Well, it did. And I made sure that everyone in the house knew that my tree finally flowered.

A rather, umm, zoomed out picture of my tree. Isn't it cute?