Cursed Tongue: Low Tree, High Maintenance

Posted by CursedTongue on August 25, 2006

I think I discovered a new form of hypochondria. Now I’m not only obsessing about the size, shape and color of the mole on my cheek. I’m also obsessing about the mysterious wet spot in the backyard (no, we don’t have a dog), the dripping noise that the toilet in the master bath makes, and the spidery crack in the wall in the utility closet. Ah, the joys of homeownership.

Oh, for the days when the sinkhole in the front yard was decidedly someone else’s problem.

Does this make me a well-rounded neurotic? I suppose I haven’t spent less time wondering if I’ve contracted Lyme Disease. There’s just more to worry about. Not only do I still occasionally wake up in the grip of raging heartburn, my left arm asleep, unable to restrain my imagination with the three-in-the-morning fog blocking what little reasoning function my brain contains, leading me to ponder the continuity of my existence as a physical being on this planet, but lately, a new midnight freak out has cropped up in what are already too busy nights. (What with me trying to get to sleep and then waking up several times and trying to get back to sleep.) On stormy nights I wonder, did the lightning that exacerbated my latent heart condition and blew out my eardrums set the roof on fire?

It was just one of these tempestuous nights, during an infamous Phoenix Valley monsoon, that we experienced our first taste of storm damage. The street in front of our house became a swift, churning river. The wind whipped the saplings on the block mercilessly, and snapped our so-called Thornless Chilean Mesquite tree in half.

Fortunately, or so I thought at the time, there were some branches and leaves left. The wind snapped off the top of the main trunk. Instead of growing up, the tree is content to be a mesquite bush, its leaves trailing the ground. It looks so pathetic that I got an idea for a children’s book entitled, “The Depressed Little Mesquite Tree That Gave Up.”

Originally, we wanted an ocotillo in our front yard, which is the size of half of a postage stamp. Ocotillos are vertical sticks with pointy sharp thorns, and they grow up to 20 feet tall. They would serve the purpose of adding height to our landscaping without taking over the yard we could completely cover with 5 welcome mats. Ocotillos are low maintenance, and desert friendly. They do not require irrigation, nor do they demand much attention.

However, the Home Owner’s Association didn’t have ocotillos on their list of approved plants. But the HOA did require a tree in every yard, even ones the size of torn-in-half postage stamps. So we chose the least objectionable tree on their very short list: the Thornless Chilean Mesquite. It will be nice having a mesquite, we thought. We’ll have shade and calming wind-through-the-leaves noise. And we can trim the branches and use them for their magnificent mesquite flavored smoke when we barbeque. Then we can plant even more plants that are useful and edible and pretend like we’re communing with nature.

About a month after the tree-into-a-bush tragedy, I got a notice from the HOA. They wanted me to trim my tree, which had, horror of horrors, grown over into the neighbor’s yard. I had 14 days to comply with the HOA’s demand that I trim my already sad, snapped-in-half, little tree, or they would sue me for every penny and take my house.

I’ve never felt so much like a felon. Truly insulted, I gathered my saw, my pruning sheers and my garden gloves and went out in the 114-degree heat. So, I was insulted and stupid. But if you want to sue me, you have to get in line behind the fascist, bourgeoisie despots at the HOA.

Crying and sawing in the 114-degree heat, I realized I was one housecoat short of being the neighborhood crazy lady. I also realized that either Chile has a warped sense of humor or the landscaper truly didn’t understand the word thornless, in the phrase “Thornless Chilean Mesquite.” From all of the other requests he neglected to understand, it seems that our tree being some unknown thorny species of mesquite is well within the realm of possibility. I trimmed the tree right down the property line. Then I decided it would be smarter to de-leaf and cut to size the branches on the kitchen floor where there was air conditioning, even if it meant sweeping up and inviting Lyme ridden ticks into the house.

It’s bad enough worrying that the patched tub will form a slow leak and deadly, insurance exempted mold will take hold in the floor and the walls, without having to hack my sickly mesquite bush into oblivion at the whim of the HOA.

A brief walk around the neighborhood reveals at least 20 violations more egregious than trailing branches. We’re left to guess which rule they’re going to enforce and when. And I thought the woman hacking apart her tree in the 114-degree heat was high maintenance.

- Sarah Letnes

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