The Felling of a Favorite

In blossom, spring 2009

One of my favorite aspects of our new home’s yard was the 25-year-old apple tree out back. Its twisted branches didn’t make it a beautiful site, but it provided shade with a rich canopy and gave us more than 2,000 apples during our first harvest. Coming from a house that had no trees, it was a pleasant upgrade and provided an excuse to invite all of our family and friends over to enjoy the harvest with us.

Portion of harvest 2009

Jason and I talked about planting two more apple trees this spring or summer. We figured in the five years they’d take to mature, we might be nearing the end of our current apple's life.

We were wrong.

Last fall was the first and last time we’d pick apples from our favorite tree. It died this spring.

We kept waiting for the leaves to come in. Finally about a quarter of the tree leafed, but there were only a couple blossoms. I called over a guy from the county extension office who quickly diagnosed it with heart rot. The wound on our tree’s trunk, which had been there for years, had finally filled with fungus and killed most of the tree. He suggested cutting it down right away as the trunk’s integrity was compromised.

We were heartbroken.

Sadly, most of the leaves you see are from a tree in the background.

Yes, it’s only a tree. But it gave us shade and apples, fresh applesauce, apple pies. Jason liked to climb it. The kids tried to climb it. We hung our bird feeder from it and I looked at it every time I was doing dishes in the kitchen sink. It was our favorite.

We wiped our eyes and pulled out the chainsaw. Within minutes, Jason and Dwain downed the tree and sawed it into logs we’ll burn this winter in our fireplace.

We searched local nurseries for three beautiful new trees – Honeycrisp, Haroldred and Zestar. We paced out their perfect new locations and lovingly planted them surrounding the old stump.

We’ll have apples, shade and climbing trees again. Check back in about five years and we’ll show you our new favorite features of our backyard.

You can pick some apples too.