My Tangerine Tree

Yes, another non-scrapbook related post. But I promise we will get back to Smash Book pages tomorrow. I tend to do a weeks worth of projects and stuff over the weekend, and sometimes during the week, so I have content for the upcoming weeks. But sometimes I fall behind if I have a busy week or weekend, like if I'm out of town or something.

Anyway, growing up, my grandparents had a Tangerine tree in their back yard. They lived in the Deep South and couple get away with having one. I remember waiting patiently every winter for the fruit to ripen. One year we got to pluck the fruit straight off the tree and eat it right away. However, sometimes, like we do in Houston, the Deep South will get freaky weather during the winter. The Deep South is not known for frosts but one year a freezing temperatures and frost killed their 30 year old Tangerine tree :-(. I think there was freezing weather several days in a row. There goes one childhood memory.

Fast forward to last summer. I had a brilliant plan! Southeast Texas mimic sub-tropic weather. Yes, we gets freezing temperatures every year but I have always paid attention and took care to cover sensitive plants with a bed sheet for protection. So I decided to go for it. I was going to buy a Tangerine tree. Only I did not know there were different types of Tangerine trees.

Looking on the tags and reading the info I decided the Dancy was the type my grandparents must have had; it was the only Tangerine tree that said it was sensitive to freezing temperatures. The others weren't as sensitive to freezing temperatures but they also didn't grow as big. I wanted the same kind of tree my grandparents had. No other would do. And based on the info I had I decided the Dancy had to be my tree.

We got the tree home, found a spot in the yard, and got to planting it right away. But oh no! We're in the middle of a drought. As the weeks and months went by I grew more and more worried about my tree. The leaves weren't looking very healthy and I was afraid maybe it was diseased. Yes, we watered it every few days but apparently we weren't watering enough, or maybe barely enough, for it to take.

I say barely because now that it's winter, and we've been getting tons of rain, my tree is blossoming! FINALLY! There was even a bee pollinating:

It will probably be another couple of years before my new tree starts to grow fruit. I forgot exactly how long. But I know it won't be this winter. So hopefully December 2013 I will see some fruit. My grandparents have been deceased for 10 years now. They died in their mid-90s. But now I have the tree and every time I look out in my backyard I think of them.

Freda
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