Victory

A few weeks ago our last sleeping tree flowered. Neither of us can remember it flowering before and with the strange, mixed spring that we've had it was a surprise. We'd cut the hedges to improve the spring light levels to see if we could coax our sleepy friend into life, but that was more hunch than scientific method. On Sunday I noticed that it has bunches of cherries.

Victory.

I'm an engineer. Applying a proven solution to a problem is the whole point of engineering. But I'm an engineer from a background in biology and although biology is entirely deterministic, its arcane processes conspire to create the illusion of chaos. The human mind has its limits, there are processes which are impossible to hold in mind, and there is a vast hinterland between art and science which can only be explored with inuition, populated with strangers: architects and psychologists and so on. So when an intuition bears fruit, that's a source of joy to me. I hope no one saw me dancing around the tree like some new-age loon. Next to it is a small Gala apple which was rotten when we arrived. Over the years, I've cut back a rotten branch, let another grow to replace it, cut the next rotten branch and so on. This autumn I'll prune it and it will be a healthy tree with thick branches and a good shape. One of our new pears got fireblight and I spent a whole summer managing its retreat until it became a full rout. I cut the main stem two feet from the ground. Now it's growing away. Next to that is a quince which almost died from black spot in its first two years. That was another rearguard action, stripping leaf after leaf until it hit its stride, suddenly greening and thickening. Now it takes the occasional black spot on its leaves in its disdainful stride. Mrs Snoutindingle once delved into the hedges that I'd carefully renovated, hacked splendid holes in them and freed three apple trees that we thought were wildings and turned out not to be. Higher in the garden we pruned a sad pear tree and discovered that it was a double graft, a comice on a conference on a quince rootstock and next to it, there's a hybrid of the two. All four now bear fruit. There is a Wealthy apple hidden in the Big Hedge which the good lady discovered and has been treating for its nasty fungal excressences. Our last planting was a "dead" Medlar that we bought from a Fenland market for a tenner. We heard the lady on the stall give a little sing-song laugh as we walked off with it. This year it has flowered in abundance - its flowers have a delicate marshmallow scent - and the fat lady can go sing all she wants. We bought a dried up standard olive tree for a tenner from a nursery. "Last legs, but the pot would be nearly that" they said. Five years later it's thriving, surrounded by its children: cuttings in various stages of growth. My sister bought me a Kumquat tree for my birthday. That died too, turning brown in its pot so that even Mrs Snoutigdingle doubted that I could revive it. Revive it I did. In fact, for whatever reason, the only trees that I can't save are the ones that are presents from my Mum.