I never was a hardnosed gardening type and usually let the garden do its own thing – with a little help from the gardener, of course. And I only recently realised that each of the eight species of trees growing in my small plot had its own story to tell, stories we need to listen to.
The eldest was the Australian bottlebrush my mother planted over 40 years ago. It got a bad start to life when a drunken twerp in a Contessa slammed into it, hunching it over at a dangerous angle. It looked like it would keel over any moment, especially when the rain made its foliage heavy. At one point, we had to amputate a branch so it could ‘straighten up’ a bit. For years, maybe still in shock, it never flowered. Then, one year, there were scarlet blooms peeping out, just a few at first. But in subsequent years, it burst into full bloom: thousands of fuzzy scarlet flowers, wafting their scent and attracting bees, wasps, birds, squirrels and monkeys in hordes. The party lasted around a fortnight, from the first week of March after which the massive clean-up that had to be done.
But the tree to which I really doff my hat, has to be the curry patta in the larger back lawn. It was a spindly weakling of a sapling when we planted it on a whim, never expecting it to survive. Especially when the renovations in the flat above caused our lawn to resemble Gaza after a visit by the Israelis. At times, the sapling seemed completely buried under the malba. But defiant in the face of this bombardment, it somehow held its head high. Today, it has a fine canopy of fresh green leaves – essential for all curries – and seems to have inspired the mosambi tree we planted just next to it – it is still very young, but produced a juicy mosambi last summer. (No such luck this year!)
After lunch one day, I decided to put the seed of the mango I had just enjoyed in the bed, where once we had a small plantation of banana trees growing. And then forgot all about it. Unobtrusively, the seed germinated – and like so many baby trees do, it too looked weak and wavering. But it persevered and today, some five years later, stands tall, proud and sturdy, offering us its first mangoes, and keeping my balcony properly private.
A Kumquat plant (Wikimedia Commons)
At the far end of the garden is a venerable old kumquat tree, not really a fully grown one, but it produces kumquats by the hundred (which I still have to learn how to pickle in gin or make marmalade out of). Its immediate neighbour is a nimbu tree. Again, rather small, and having a tough time due to lack of adequate sun. It’s the progeny of another nimbu tree that grew in the same place which, for years, had supplied wonderful limes virtually 24X7.
Then, there is the rather scraggily ‘keede wale amrudh’ (worm infested guava), which from time to time produces these hard little guavas, riddled with worms, which I leave for the parakeets to enjoy. And finally, the graceful golden bottlebrush that flowers so demurely in September or October, a far cry from its flamboyant cousin up front but none the less elegant for it.
Of course, there are trees which didn’t quite make it, or that live out their lives and die. We’ve tried papaya a number of times, and in every case they shoot up to 6 or 7 feet and then just give up. A fish-tailed palm lived for over 30 years before keeling over and had to be helped down. These trees have their ‘enemies’. The monkeys have discovered the mango tree and in their usual wasteful way, will take a bite from one mango, discard it and move to another. They similarly ravage the bottlebrush (as do the parakeets and squirrels).
It’s astonishing to think that these trees have grown so silently and have never thrown a tantrum, quietly taking in carbon-di-oxide and water vapour and exhaling oxygen. Each tree supports an entire community of other living creatures – insects, arachnids, birds, reptiles (like garden lizards), rodents, et al, which in turn via seed dispersal spread their progeny far and wide. That apart, the trees keep in touch with one another and exchange nutrients via their extensive underground fungal network. All these creatures are killed or must seek other sanctuaries when the tree is brought down, which is the one and seemingly only thing we are expert at. We have chainsaws and JCBs, and the suckers can’t run away, so what are we waiting for? Bring down or drown entire rainforests, in a genocide that Hitler would have envied, and replace them with purebred monoculture plantations of oil palm.
As for respecting a 300-year-old giant or an avenue full of them – no way, we need to widen that expressway so even more morons can careen down them and smash into each other. Thankfully, in some places, at least, venerable old giants are protected by (and provide shade to) places of worship built near them and there are communities (not among the rich and famous) who will protect them with their lives if necessary. We need the whole country to do that because in a forest, there can be no more hideous a sound than that of an axe biting deep into wood, or the banshee shriek of a chainsaw revving up.
Bottlebrush tree (Wikimedia Commons) 
A Kumquat plant (Wikimedia Commons)
Share
