This one was the ugly duckling: it sprouted last year but a heat wave while we were out of town and that was that. My two inch tree. And yet somehow it lived.

This is also the one that had thrips eating the juices to all its attempts at new growth this spring. I squished them between my fingers every night till none came back and looked at my poor sorry little apricot wannabe and wondered: of the five, why was only that one attacked? Is it sweeter? Or just scrawnier and easier to get at? Does it mean that’s the one I should want to put to ground, does it mean I shouldn’t?

It gave itself hopeful little pep talks all spring but there wasn’t a lot to see.

Then almost suddenly, a month into summer, it has the best form and the most abundant growth of them all. All that stuff it went through, it turns out, pruned and prepped it well. This is really only its first year, and look at that!

Someone is going to love this tree over its lifetime. Might even be me.