Thursday, October 21, 2021

Horse Chestnut Tree


Our horse chestnut tree right now.



The horse chestnut's gorgeous spring blossom. 


Conkers. The seeds of the horse chestnut tree.

We had visitors on Tuesday, Willy John and Annie, Bert's third cousins. While they were here Annie told us this lovely tale. Bert's Aunt Lizzie, who died at the beginning of the year, was a regular visitor to this house when Pearlie was around. Lizzie always had a great love for the natural world and she would always take an interest in what was going on around here. She gathered conkers from the tree and gave a bagful to Annie who, like Lizzie, had a passion for growing things. Annie sowed the conkers and as they grew, she planted the saplings into ever bigger containers. Eventually, they were big enough to plant out and now they have a row of horse chestnuts growing down the side of their lane. It was so pleasing to hear that. 

Bert intends to plant about a hundred or so horse chestnuts this year. Hopefully, ours will grow just as well as Annie's did.

2 comments:

Mage said...

How wonderful.

Nelly said...

I know Mage. I was thrilled when I heard that our lovely tree had babies already.