MOM'S PLANTS & TREES

I miss Mom.  I miss seeing her in the kitchen cooking her famous mushroom chicken and spaghetti with meat sauce and her signature chili.  I think that that was John Larkin's favorite.  Mom would fix a pot of chili with the knowledge that John and Charlen were stopping over.  John loved Mom's chili!  He'd scoop himself a bowl and add Fritos Corn Chips, cheese, and onions, souping it up, adding I believe hot sauce as well.  That's one memory I miss of Mom--working in the kitchen.

My second memory is watching Mom ironing our clothes.  Her ironing board was up at all times.  She'd lay out the shirt and spray water over the garment to maximize the effects of her ironing efforts.  I remember thinking to myself when I first saw her do this, "Wow!  That was smart."  And it was.  Mom was a smart woman, a smart soul.

On Sunday, February 12, 2012, I wrote:
Mom would ask occasionally how my apartment was coming along.  I told her fine.  I could tell that she hoped that my place was comfortable and clean, which it is.  She asked a few times how my apartment was coming along.  I always told her fine, which it was.  I told her one time that I was thinking about purchasing a leather chair.  That idea filled her with images of a man sitting in a deep and comfortable leather chair next to a floor lamp with pipe and newspaper.  With that one image she built up in her head a man of independent means, enjoying a quiet life at home surrounded by books, classical music, and goo food.  She couldn't have been more right.  My mom loved furniture.  I remember going with her one year to Sears in the Hastings Ranch of Pasadena to pick out a living room set.  This was back in the '70's when ranch style furniture was big.  Mom loved wood too.  In fact, the last pieces of furniture that she purchased were those big wood dressers in her room.  And then she absolutely loved that wood China cabinet in the dining room.  She took great pride in her furniture.

Thursday, June 28, 2012
Mom also loved gardening, or should I say, she loved organizing her garden.  One of the plants that she loved to have both in her front yard and in her backyard was the agapanthus.

A few times I think I heard her refer to them as as the "Lily of the Nile."  The back story on that title is funny.  But she loved these plants.  She had them lined against the fence in the backyard and around a tree in the front yard next to the mail box.

In the front yard, at the northeast corner of the property was a section that we shared with Frank and Brenda Flannigan.  We used to park our metal trash cans in the street for pick-up.  But on the lawn in that section were planted two crape myrtle trees.  Linda across the street liked them so much that she went ahead and planted on near her mailbox, perhaps to match the trees that Mom had out in her front yard.

Also in the front yard, Mom had planted a pine tree.  What kind of pine tree?  I believe that it was a Khasi Pine Tree that is native to the Philippines.

In the backyard, Mom had a variety of plants and trees planted.  One small tree that she hadn't even planted but whose branches sprawled into our yard was Frank and Brenda Flannigan's Bottlebrush Tree, which was to me one of the strangest trees I'd ever known.  The tree did attract a lot of hummingbirds for some reason.

Mom also had an White Angel's Trumpet tree that produced scores of flowers in each bloom.

Mom also had a row of Calla Lillies planted along the back fence.  They were beautiful when in bloom, stalwart stems with beautiful white cups.  Sitting at the dining room table, sipping coffee, eating breakfast, or reading the newspaper, they were always nice to look out at.  Evocative of blessed days somehow.

Mom enjoyed our fairly productive but gnarled apricot tree.  Its growth was deformed it seemed.  And family pruners splintered the poor tree, leaving it look like some ancient thing.

For some reason, I always wanted to touch the tree's sap.
Its early bloom was always beautiful to me.

One of my favorite trees in the backyard was the plum tree with its dark wood and white spring blossoms.

Then of course perhaps my personal favorite was the Chinese Elm tree, which is ubiquitous in the southwest.  My mom didn't like it too much because of all of the tiny leaves on the ground that had to be raked.  But I loved the shade that the tree provided.  I loved its large, scaly trunk.  Was one of my favorite trees.  Its branches always grew into a uniform umbrella.  Pictured second below is the bark of the Chinese Elm that Mom hated raking.

Though Dad appreciated the fruit trees more than anyone because he could feed his kids with them, Mom didn't always appreciate the mess they left.  But she did enjoy the fruit.  At one point we did have in our backyard a hearty and productive peach tree, and Mom loved a sun-ripened peach more than any other fruit.

We even had a banana tree.  My dad must have liked its exotic island look and reminded him of his stay on the Marshall Islands in the Pacific.  The one we did plant in our backyard never produced a single banana.  Not one. But its flowers were quite beautiful.

Though I enjoyed the Elm Tree's thick, scaly trunk, its magnificent form into an expansive umbrella, perhaps the tree I loved more than any other primarily for its beauty is the beautiful magnolia grandiflora tree that Mom planted at the southeast corner of the backyard.