The Tale of the Peach Plum Tree

There's so much I wish I could talk about, but can't. It makes blogging tough when you can't talk about what you're thinking about.

Instead, today I am going to share some pictures and thoughts about a tree.

Outside my back door next to the peacock pen is a happy little tree. It's not your ordinary leafy shade-giver. Long ago, a peach branch was grafted onto a plum tree and now the tree produces peaches on one side and plums on the other. It's a plum peach tree. Or a peach plum tree. I see every day as I back out of the driveway. It was glorious this spring to watch it bloom with two different flowers an with time, it came to have dozens of happy, dark purple, infant plums hanging from one side, and eager, fuzzy, green peaches on the other.

The summer has not been kind to that poor peach plum tree. A violent, windy thunderstorm, brief but mighty, bent the tree over nearly sideways in submission to it's brute force. Afterward, I noted with dismay all those pretty fruits lying on the ground. Remarkably, the peaches managed to hold on.


Around the same time, a famished swarm of Japanese Beetles came for lunch. The uninvited guests truly decimated the buffet table, but only to the plum side. When they were done, the plum side looked like this:

Sad indeed. The beetles left nothing but dry, brittle, latices and a few withered plums. for whatever reason, they, too, left the peach side of the tree unscathed. But, it seemed sure that it was only a matter of time before the tree succumbed to it's injuries and died. How could it survive without it's leaves? Surely this would be the end of the peach plum tree.

In the weeks following, the brutal 100+ degree temperatures and cloudless, raindrop-less skies seemed only to further secure the fate if the withered tree. Then, curiously, I noted a lone survivor plum which kept growing larger and larger. I couldn't imagine how that was possible, with no leaves to deliver capture the sunlight and turn it into nourishment, nor rain to quench it. It whispered to me of hope and encouragement. Despite trials, in the face of scarcity, when all seems lost, hope is still possible, it said. Every day I would think, Keep going, little guy. Hang in there!

One day the lone plum disappeared, I can only assume the work of a hungry critter bandit.
That'll do, plum, that'll do.

But then I noticed something quite remarkable. Do you see it?? 

New growth! Despite the tempest winds, the driving rain, the ravaging beetles, the punishing heat, the parching drought--new growth is still possible. The tree will live another day. She will experience the glorious robe of fall colors, it will wear the crystals of winter frost and snow, and in the spring, she will festoon herself with blossoms again. With all good fortune, she will share her bounty next summer with the VVs, and perhaps P and A will enjoy her fruit, juicy plumb juices running down their chin as they bite into the shiny purple skins.

But, should the punishing forces of mother nature do her worst, and the peach plumb tree should again suffer loss and pestilence, all is not lost, for the seasons change, time marches on, things which seemed lost and hopeless will grow new again.

Not being much of a horticulturalist, I am not well studied on the complexities of plant life, especially grafting, but I suspect the peach side of the tree played a significant role in all of this. I suspect the leaves and functions that were sustaining the peaches aided in the healing process of the plumb side of the tree. I suspect the peach side of the tree gave of herself to keep her Siamese twin alive, and in time, it allowed her to flourish again. It was not so much sacrificial as it was self-preservation, but truth is told in it still.

In our own times of scarcity and pain and loss, if we are grafted to the right thing, we can not only survive what comes our way, we will again flourish some day.

"I am the Real Vine and my Father is the Farmer. He cuts off every branch of me that doesn't bear grapes. And every branch that is grape-bearing he prunes back so it will bear even more. You are already pruned back by the message I have spoken. 

"Live in me. Make your home in me just as I do in you. In the same way that a branch can't bear grapes by itself but only by being joined to the vine, you can't bear fruit unless you are joined with me.  

"I am the Vine, you are the branches. When you're joined with me and I with you, the relation intimate and organic, the harvest is sure to be abundant. Separated, you can't produce a thing. Anyone who separates from me is deadwood, gathered up and thrown on the bonfire. But if you make yourselves at home with me and my words are at home in you, you can be sure that whatever you ask will be listened to and acted upon. This is how my Father shows who he is—when you produce grapes, when you mature as my disciples." (John 15:1-8, The Message)

Now, nearly on the other side of my own season of drought and scarcity and storms, I can relate to her. I have been the plum side of the tree. Such lessons I hold onto in my own current season of life. Thanks to the peach plumb tree.

The full tree, peaches on the left.

Through it all, the peaches have prospered.

This picture has nothing to do with the tree.. . but in this drought, I find it humorous that the only part of the yard which is green is directly over the septic tank. For what it's worth.