Golden Chain

Day 247: The Golden Chain Tree is in bloom. This was one of the items on my priority list when I bought my home over thirty years ago, but I had trouble finding one I felt I could afford. Most of what was available came in huge pots, so large that I knew I couldn't get one into my car or, more importantly, get it back out again and to the spot where I wanted to plant it. Then one day as I was nosing around in one of my favourite garden stores, I came across a weeping variety at a reasonable price. Big pot or not, the tree just fit in the back of my car with the branches filling the passenger seat and only slightly bent down against the front windshield. It was something of a challenge to heft the pot out the rear hatch and roll it into place. My father had insisted that if you bought a $5 tree, you should put it in a "$50 hole" to ensure its survival, so I set to digging and filling, using store-bought garden soil to bed it in. Daddy's wisdom paid off. It's still not very tall, but it blooms reliably, and the weeping habit enhances the effect of the golden chains of pea-shaped flowers which give this Laburnum its common name.