The Replacement

One of my ex-bosses had a little saying while we watched some workers cut down a tree to put up a building extension: "It takes 15 bloody long years to get a tree to its full height, but it takes only 15 minutes to cut it down!"

While our mango tree slowly withers away, I'm making preparations for its replacement. After all, it takes years for a tree to grow to its full potential, so I need to start early. But it seems my little replacement, the ciku seed, is taking its own sweet time to germinate. Looks like it's going to take some effort on my part to nurture it. The 'parents' come all the way from Kuala Selangor.

After several days seeing nothing emerging I got worried, until I noticed a little crack in one of the seeds that got 'floated' above the soil. Then a day later another of the seeds surfaced and 'anchored' itself into the soil.


Knowing we won't be around to water it, we took it along on our travels. (The story is: We're staying at brother-in-law's. While wife takes care of the cooking and cleaning in the house, I take over some of the son's errands, while he recuperates for a month in hospital of some internal ailment. On top of that, I have an assignment to keep track of).

I covered the little pots with a plastic netting and left them in a corner in their garden. That night, their dogs messed up the pots and chewed the netting to pieces. Fortunately, one of the seedlings survived. Then another seed broke through the surface of the soil in the 2nd pot.



Stick around... especially you tree lovers.