Revitalizing Old Cherry Trees
A cherry tree is still a cherry tree even if it’s not currently bearing fruit. We are still so worthy of love and support even if we don’t feel like we’re up to everything that life expects of us right now. And carving out a few moments out of our days to nourish and trim back the excesses in our lives can lead us to bearing such wholesome & delicious fruit.
While I was working on my undergraduate degree at Weber State University, I had so many wonderful opportunities to support and organize lots of projects that I was absolutely not the subject matter expert but I felt were important. From showcasing alternative fuel vehicles with the automotive engineering department, to sponsoring a star show at the planetarium designed to get people to care more about our planet: the only home any of us have ever known.
One of those tangential passion projects was a push to break the Guinness World Record for the most trees planted in an hour. A somewhat obscure record for sure, but there’s a reason why those annual books are a thousand pages with 6 point size font. In any case, the record was more of a catalyst than the underlining goal, which was actually to just plant a bunch of trees.
One area of campus that the university botanist identified as being potentially a gold mine of tree planting possibilities was on the outskirts of campus behind some annex houses that were converted into offices. I worked with an incredible Botany professor—Dr. Gatherum—to layout a design for his own passion project: the development of a community orchard.
We would plant 25 fruit trees mixed between apple, pear, plum, and peach trees, and I even won funding through a special grant to purchase the trees. Other planting locations were scattered throughout the campus and even in surrounding cities.
The day of the grand tree planting event arrived. I rallied the troops at the main plaza bell tower and then sent them out to their respective planting locations and coordinated the start time which would be right at the strike of noon. I called all of the planting captains and told them we were a go!
All told, we planted 135 trees that day all with an hour. Breaking the old record by more than double. We even got affidavits signed by the University President and the mayors of the two cities where trees were planted in coordination with their city park departments. That was a very exciting day.
I suppose there are many lessons that could be drawn from this experience: lessons ranging from hard work to the power of collaboration. But today I was reminded about something else entirely connected to that experience.
The first time Dr. Gatherum and I walked the grounds where we would plant 25 fruit trees just a few weeks later, it became quite obvious why the professor would think of planting fruit trees at that particular location. Because in the backyards of the two annex university buildings there were two tired, gnarled cherry trees and an overgrown apple tree.
I was fascinated because although it was clearly the time of the year when those old fruit trees should be in blossom, I didn’t see a single blossom anywhere on those three trees. Puzzled, I asked Dr. Gatherum what was going on. Are the trees dying, I wondered.
He explained the trees were quite healthy, but that it had been so long since the trees had been pruned or fertilized, the trees had slowly reverted to just putting up leaves. To have fruit trees bear a lot of fruit, he continued, we have to do some care for the trees. The trees will give to us, if we give back to the trees.
I’ve reflected back on that experience and that interaction particularly many times over the years since. An apple tree is still an apple tree even if it’s currently not bearing fruit. And in a similar way, we are very much still worthy of love and support even if we don’t feel like we are up to everything that we feel like life expects out of us. And isn’t it such a hopeful thought, that carving out a few moments out of our days to nourish and trim back the excesses in our lives can lead us to bearing such wholesome & delicious fruit.