The mystery of the disappearing tree

It is no secret that I am rubbish at gardening; my plants suffer the pains of hell gasping for water or drowning, lacking food and in general time, attention and tender loving care. It shows. The only reason our few shrubs survive is because we are now entering winter with its more forgiving climate and the maid waters them every other day, with the exception of the ones in the flowerbed outside which she inexorably manages to neglect too.

So the potted plants in our little courtyard look just… ok, the flowerbed on the outside in the other hand looks like the front patch of an abandoned house inhabited by ghosts (see photo on the side).

I have my excuses, such as I work very long hours for 4 days a week and the last thing I want to do when I come back home in the late evenings, hungry and with hair hardened and encrusted with sea salt is to spend half hour watering the plants, battling with a cheap hose that gets stuck under the car wheels and negotiating my way between the car and the perimeter wall to reach those damn rachitic shrubs on the outside…Yes, you’ve got it; gardening just doesn’t motivate me enough; or at least until now.

Suddenly in the last few weeks, maybe taken by the sense of guilt when seeing these poor two little trees every morning on my way to work hanging on dearly to their lives against all the odds I decided it was time to take some care.

It is amazing how resilient nature can be. I have always known that nature has its ways of recovering but that plant looked absolutely dead beyond any hope so when I started watering the two little trees and the small tree started coming back from the dead (see picture of recovering tree on the side) I was more than excited to see that maybe not all was lost so I made my resolution.

The plan was to go and buy some tools and sort this front patch once and for all, planting new flowers, clearing it up from the dead stuff, killing the weed and look after these resilient trees that showed me so much hope so that eventually the flower bed will again look like a respectable green patch.

Now here comes the dilemma. I am not sure whether one of the trees fed up with the treatment received grew some legs overnight and walked away or if (more likely) some scumbag decided that they could just eradicate it and make it theirs but the fact is that one of the small trees has disappeared (the one in better condition). Just like that!

In its place just a small hole in the ground (again see photo on the side).

You have no idea of the sense of abuse that I felt when I noticed the empty space walking out of the house this morning! I really miss my tree.

It is amazing how attached one can become to living things, even plants. After all the time spent making sure that it would survive I cannot believe it is no longer there. It had become like a pet to me. So at the moment, I am really annoyed (to the point that I think if I ever found out who removed it I may become seriously abusive).

You should have seen me this morning on my way to the key cutter to cut a copy of the keys for the engines of our new boat (but that’s another story for another post) driving around the neighborhood looking at other front houses to see if I could recognize my rachitic tree..

How pathetic can I be? Yes I think I have lost it altogether!

The mystery now remains… who on earth would steal a tree and why? and is this a crime that should be reported to the police? LOL! The world is full of weirdoes and every day there are new reasons to believe it!

As for what’s next, it’s really time to take action on that flower bed. It looks ever more desolate now, without my beloved little tree!