When you garden on a deck, space can be a issue. Thankfully my deck is quite large, and I am on the ground floor. This becomes a important issue when a tree has a unexpected growth spurt. Well, who reads those description labels anyways, obviously not me. I suffer from a sort of gardening denial that thinks the tree is never going to get that big, because it is in a pot. So very, very wrong, and I don’t seem to learn. Remember the Parrotia tree saga, [Wanted, three strong men], now happily living up country, at my Sister’s farm. It completely filled the back of that huge pickup truck. And yes it started out really small also.
The other day I was visiting the adopted home of a few of my trees, and I was shocked at how much they had grown. One started out as a mere stick of twisted willow from a flower bouquet, was now a billowing, 10 foot tall mammoth taking up a good chunk of the yard. The famous crashing Katsura tree, is almost taller then the 3 story house. Even planted in the biggest plastic pot available, this was one tree that was determined to reach beyond the second story windows at my place. And given the slightest wind it would topple down onto the patio. It got so big that nothing could hold it upright. Not bungee cords, ropes, or bricks.
I had even given away my Viburnum Summer Snowflake, and it is much happier now in the ground. Parting with them was hard, and I miss them, but they are so better off now reaching for the sky. Jane