Red-flowering Dogwood

Day 230: When a friend gave birth to a daughter fifteen years ago, she was living in a small apartment and realized that it might be a long time before she had property of her own. She wanted to plant a tree to mark the occasion of her daughter's entry into the world, and wanted it to be somewhere she could revisit as the child grew older, a place where she could point to it and say, "That's your tree. It was planted when you were born." She asked me if she could put a Dogwood in my yard and I said yes.

She and her husband arrived one drizzly morning with a Red-flowered Dogwood in a ten-gallon pot fresh from the nursery, explaining that they had not been able to find a white variety (the original plan) and we set to work. The old saying goes, "If you buy a five-dollar tree, put it in a ten-dollar hole." We took turns digging earth from the "ten-dollar hole" with shovels, pry bars and my PhD (Post-hole Digger). At last with a small ceremony, the sapling was bedded in a rich mix to give it a good start.

For several years, it bore nothing but leaves with a slight reddish cast to them. Then it made a few flowers one Spring and I thought we were on the road to success. The following year, it again only produced greenery. It has been an on-off situation from that time, and finally this year, it came into full flower. The family situation precludes a visit, so I've taken this photo for the young lady who shall always be "The Dogwood Child" to me.