When Stephan and I bought our house in 1996, it had two huge silver maples in the front yard. We eventually lost them both in storms. After we lost the first tree, we decided to plant a weeping willow. They're gorgeous trees, but I did have an ulterior motive. The title character in my ballet and novel-in-progress, "The Willow Maiden," is a willow dryad. I wanted a close-up view every day of how a willow looked with buds opening, catkins growing, leafing out, and so forth, for inspiration.Here are a few photos of the tree. You can click on them to see the larger images.We picked out the willow in a tree nursery in August, 2004.
The tree was planted in the fall, once the it had gone dormant. In the spring, I was excited to see the buds start, and then, leaves!
By June 2005, it was about as leafed out as it was going to get that year. Very pretty, but still a baby tree.
It's done well for the past several years, but looks particularly stunning this year, thanks to all the rain we've had. I took this picture today of Stephan with the tree before giving it a much-needed trim to keep the branches from trailing the driveway and sidewalk:
Then, the willow got its "haircut." The cat in the picture is our feral friend, Shasta. He's not so feral any more. I cuddled him and pulled some burrs out of his fur today.
I love that tree and it's been wonderful to see it grow. With some careful pruning to make sure it doesn't take over our whole yard, I hope to be able to enjoy it for as long as we live here.