Golden Chain Tree

Day 235: This is a Golden Chain Tree (Laburnum), not to be confused with Golden Rain Tree (Koelreuteria). It is part of the Family Fabaceae (legumes), not Sapindaceae (soapberry), placing it in the same botanical "box" as peas and Scotch broom as opposed to the one containing horse chestnuts and lychee. Now, have we got this straight? Stop calling Golden Chain Tree by the wrong name! Mine happens to be a weeping variety with droopy branches as well as dangly inflorescences, and it was one of my "must-have" plants for my yard. It took me a decade or more to find one I could afford, and the contortions we went through to arrange transportation from the nursery where I bought it on a fall close-out sale were hilarious. It was in an enormous pot, for one thing, and given the size of the pot and the height of the tree, the distance between the footwell in front of the passenger seat of my car and the back window meant that we had to carefully bend the top of the tree to get it inside. There wasn't much room for me in there as I drove it home with leaves tickling my ears, only to face the challenge of manipulating the pot (heavy!) out of the car and over to the "$200" hole I'd dug for my $20 tree. That was my father's advice showing: whatever you paid for the plant, dig a hole worth ten times the amount to plant it in. Okay, the rich soil I bedded it in didn't actually cost $200, but there should be bonus points for backache. My hard work paid off. My lovely Laburnum is now covered in pendent golden chains.