This is a little something I shared over on facebook and I brought it over here because it’ll fit right in with the memoirs thing and I don’t have much time right now…
You might be surprised to learn that I have planted hundreds of trees throughout my lifetime, not as a mission or anything like that, it’s just part of who I am and I really don’t think about it too much. Anyway, after checking on my apple seedling that I put in the ground this year I started wondering about all my other babies. So I figured that I’d get on Google Street View and take a little drive through my past and it ended up being quite a remarkable trip.
Six states in over fifty years and almost all the trees are still there and so big, you can’t even see my childhood home in Ohio from the road any longer. The Red Oak that I planted at The Taverne of Richfield (my first cooking job), was as tall as the three stories it complements. After all this touring it started getting a little emotional for me, haunting really, so I was a bit hesitant to visit my early childhood home in Florida to see if the very first tree I planted was still there. Even though I highly doubted it I did, and there she was, the Orchid Tree that I had planted from seed with my mother when I was four or five years old, looking lively & lush and ready to go for another fifty years!
I love the Google Street View..!
A Queens' Queen in Exile 
Wow, this must have been so gratifying, good for you honey.
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Wow, these days its a miracle!!!! How nice it must have been. That is one reason I like it here in Bucks County……for there strict open land space.
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We had an orchid tree at our house in Miami … so beautiful.
What a thrill it must be to see your ‘babies’ thriving.
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I’d hug a tree but I’m hugging YOU instead for what you’ve done.
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I spent my childhood with an orchid tree in the back yard in Ft. Lauderdale. It was so beautiful. But I have just planted four plumeria cuttings. I doubt I will see them to maturity but there is always that anticipation of “next year”.
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What a terrific thing to do! Well done Wally!
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A regular Wally Appleseed. I was just thinking about your garden in New York the other day and the seeds you planted in Appalachia. I feel so lazy now after reading this. I watched an episode of Night Gallery when I was a child and Elsa Lanchester had a green thumb and worked her garden all day every day. A greedy land developer wanted her place so he scared her and chopped off her fingers in the process. She picked them up and planted them, then died. The developer was surprised when she grew back and came out of the dirt saying, “I have green fingers”. The developer goes crazy saying into the camera, “You know what grows from old ladies fingers? Old ladies…” I hope it works for old men like me.
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