There’s something beautiful about a half-dead tree, since despite being half-dead it is still fully alive.
We have an heirloom apple tree in my front yard back home, brought as a sapling from Germany about 100 years ago. A full half of the tree is dead wood (which we dare not cut off lest we put the tree off-balance), and yet the other half grows full and lush every year, providing apples that my grandmother turns into the most incredible applesauce and apple crisps.
For several years now, I’ve been trying to clone the tree from cuttings. It’s a race against time; every summer, I fear that a hurricane or something will knock the tree down before I can take new cuttings. I came damn close more than a year ago, growing a one-inch-long section of root from a hardwood cutting completely by accident. Before that, I wasn’t even sure I could root from this type of tree at all, let alone one so very old.
However, the apple tree cuttings I took last autumn failed to root. I suspect I may have taken the cuttings too early, or else I let them get too dry over the winter. We’ll try again come Christmas… assuming the tree survives, of course. I perpetually fear a summer storm is going to sweep through and topple it. Hasn’t happened yet, though, and we’ve had some healthy storms in the past century.
This is where the world’s best applesauce and apple crisp start (picture taken by my mom, April ’09):
