Saturday, December 26, 2009
I have planted Leroy the honey locust tree in the front yard. Leroy
has the most interesting history of any shade tree anywhere,
and here is that story:
My son Brian planted the honey locust as a seed in a milk
carton as a project in I believe it was second grade, and named it Leroy. If my memory about the timing is right, that would have been in the spring of 1989. It grew in the window of our house in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. But he was a little negligent in watering it, and it died. So he planted another honey locust in another cup and named it Leroy Junior.
I decided to try to nurse Leroy, and after some time
carefully watering it, it sprang back to life. Then I planted both
Leroy and Leroy Junior in our back yard. Because of
Leroy's setbacks, Leroy Junior was larger.
Leroy Junior grew and grew to a fairly large tree. Leroy had difficulties, though,
mostly because of being set outside when it was still pretty small. First, I accidentally mowed it down. After that, I put stakes up to mark its spot, and it sprang up again. But then rabbits came and ate it. When it grew back, I covered it with mesh. By the year 2000, it had grown to be maybe six or seven feet tall, while Leroy Junior was quite a bit taller—maybe ten to fifteen feet tall.
Because of its interesting history, I decided to move Leroy to our new house, and got special permission from the owners to plant it a month before we actually moved in, because our house hadn’t sold yet, and I didn't want Leroy to be part of the house sale.
A couple of years later we started to have trouble with our septic system at that house, and we realized that I had planted the tree in the middle of the septic field, which was now soggy with overflow. Leroy was choked by the water and withered away.
I figured it was finally done for, but I wanted to give it a chance, so I moved it to the front of the house. But in that spring, I think it was the spring of 2003, it didn’t bud out, confirming that it had finally succumbed. But when we got back from a vacation in Minnesota in early July, I discovered a little shoot coming out from the base of the tree!
By fall, it had fully leafed out, so I took it with us to Colorado when we moved at the end of October, and planted it in our back yard. It flourished there from the next spring (2004) until late summer 2008. I put it into a pot and moved it down to Mesa in early September.
The long ride to Arizona in the hot truck was rough on it, and when I unloaded the truck, it was dry and withered, and soon all the leaves fell off. I nursed it, and in the spring it sprouted again.
It spent all summer in the pot, and the 110 degree heat in the Arizona summer was also tough on it, and it lost all its leaves by August. I began to be more diligent in watering it, and I again saw sprouts coming from near the base of the tree and from the roots.
In September, 2009, we bought a house, and in
November, I planted Leroy outside, in front of the house. The photograph
below was taken right after I planted it.
As you can see from the photograph above, it is barely two feet tall now, and the upper part of the trunk is dead. But I’m supposing that it will yet flourish again.
So Leroy has died five times, been transplanted five
times, grown in three states, and traveled through two other states. He has
survived drought, winter, wild beasts (rabbits), and cesspools, and has grown in plain,
foothills, and desert. He has had the most exciting life of any honey locust
tree in history.
