TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Let It Grow, Let It Grow, Let It Grow

ADVERTISEMENT

The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 7, 2008

Does it strike anyone else as ironic that so often "going green" requires just the opposite of a gardener?

My poor yard cries out for a drink and, in some cases, a little blast of insect and fungal spray. The grass is turning brown and the flowers are positively droopy. And yet, I endeavor to persevere. I want to be a good citizen of the planet.

With that in mind, I have given up on my plan to purchase a pre-lit artificial white Christmas tree. Every magazine and Web site in the land is braying that the eco-minded among us will buy live trees this year and plant them after the holidays. (An artificial tree is the absolute worst way to go, for the record.)

To buy a tree I can actually put in the ground does, indeed, feel very "green." But you can't just jam a blue spruce or a Fraser fir into your backyard - even if it could adapt to the heat, it would grow too tall and wide for the tiny yards attached to most suburban homes here.

I have done the living tree thing in Florida, though. We tried it a few years ago when we lived in Jupiter. I'll admit it was as much about saving money then as it was about saving the Earth. I wanted to buy some trees for our 11/4-acre lot, and every year I used our need for a Christmas tree as an excuse to go over the usual plant-buying budget.

The first year we purchased a Christmas palm, now called Veitchia merrillii according to floridata.com. (It was Adonidia merrillii back then.) I covered it with lights and ornaments, and it made it through the season intact. We planted it on New Year's Day and it did pretty well in our zone 10 yard, despite some cold nights. (Christmas palms don't like the cold.)

The next year, we went with a Norfolk Island pine. A pretty evergreen, it looks more like a traditional Christmas tree, and I've seen them for sale at Lowe's here in Tampa. Ours was small, but they can get very tall. Some communities don't allow them, because they're susceptible to strong wind, but we didn't have any trouble with ours. It was a slow grower, though.

Our third year in Jupiter, we really went crazy and got a pink powder puff tree (Calliandra emarginata). It's another zone 10 tree, so it might work here in Tampa. And it comes with its own ornaments - the pink flowers are very delicate and pretty, and they really do look like powder puffs. (We hung our baubles as well, along with a couple of strands of lights.)

Of course, none of these will work if you're a traditionalist, but I was as happy with these three choices as I was with any of the trees we've ever had for the holidays.

This year, if we do indeed go with a live tree, it will be a dwarf Poinciana, a tree I've been lusting after for awhile now ($50 at Lowe's). It makes sense to use my green to go green for Christmas, I think. And it can't be any more ridiculous than propping up a fake white tree, right?

Kim Franke-Folstad

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT