Scarlet
A young tree
my life so far
It is from the Gaelic Sgàrlaid which means red. It is lovely to have a name now after all the time I spent huddled with other young ones without individual identities.
My earliest memory is from when I was just a sprout in the nursery.
I was uprooted and put into a container by myself. The same thing happened to my siblings. That was scary, but I recovered and put down roots. We all stood in rows of the same variety. We could see lots of other kinds of trees.
The following year I was moved to a bigger bag. A bit of a shock, but my roots spread out in time.
A year ago I was large enough to be transplanted to a PB 12 and I have developed well in my 10 litres of soil.
I started growing faster then, and got very tall, a bit too tall for my age they said.
When I became the chosen one, and was sent up to Auckland, I had to have a special delivery because of my height.
They drove me more than 400 kilometres in a big noisy truck, and I was pretty shaken I can tell you.
I could not know that worse was in store.
I arrived to a rapturous welcome from my new mum, Ebeth. She praised my health and good looks and gave me my name. She has promised to care for me well.
I'm not convinced that this climate will suit me though. Where I come from, we get good hard frosts in winter and because I am hardy I was thriving there.
Auckland is a bit too soft and warm for me.
But I am going to be looked after well, and I will have pride of place in a great big pot outside a brand new apartment when we move there.
That news was quite reassuring, until they told me about the operation.
Ebeth said they had to cut me! She then took my entire top off, just because I was too tall. Apparently I will be the better for it eventually, but just now I am a bit sore and am busy healing.
Honestly, it's enough to make your buds burst.
