A Fagus for Father / The NE Garden Tour

About 8 months ago we agreed to let our home and gardens be on the NE Garden Tour. It's a local fund raiser and we figured we'd would have the place up to snuff by then anyway... That was BEFORE I ripped up my rotator cuff body surfing in Aruba like I was 12 years old. I still managed to do quite a bit of yard work around here, but Mike - Bless his heart - spread 18 yards of mulch for me. I think in total there were over 100 people that gawked at the gardens throughout the day. Fortunately, we didn't hang around to see them all.

Since Steve & Dara always blog the LOVELY Iris photos, I thought I'd include some photos of our gardens in their prime. Fortunately, we have so much to look at, including the river, that it distracts all but the most discerning gardner from the weeds I'm certain I missed. I don't know how to make them show up on the side so here's the link to my Picasa Album.

So - about that Fagus... After Dad died, Mike's brothers & sisters sent me a gift certificate to a local nursury to plant a tree in Dad's honor. Late last month Mike & I went to Kroh's nursery and stumbled upon this little European Fern Leaf Beech . When I came around the corner of that aisle, it was like sunbeams were shining down right on this one little tree.

The son of the owner, Mark Kroh was thrilled with my choice. He had to carefully lift it... prepped it for a week... pruned it so wouldn't go into shock... Then we came to get it. Mr. Kroh was there when we came to pick it up. He said, "You found that here? You're lucky I didn't see it first. That's a beauty!" Michael Dirr - the King of all things woody says of the Fagus sylvatica 'Asplenifolia' , " There's no finer speciman tree; so beautiful it overwhelms at first sight." I think our little 6 footer's going to grow into a true 60-100 foot stately beauty. With all those nice things said, the irony of us planting a Fagus in Dad's honor would not have escaped him.