O apple tree, may God be with thee, May moon and sun be with thee, May east and west winds be with thee, May the great Creator of the elements be with thee, May everything that ever existed be with thee [...] A Barra Waulking Song (from the Carmina Gadelica)
Pruning is intentional. This is, I believe, the thesis statement of our essay today.
While the pruning of our rosebush was mostly an exercise in crossed fingers and hope, there is one plant I prune every year that I feel pretty confident and intentional about.
Along with the property, we inherited one decades-old apple tree in the middle of our garden. It’s a Liberty apple, a hybrid variety bred from Macoun apples (a cross between McIntosh and Jersey Black) and Purdue 54-12 crabapples, which makes it very hardy and disease-resistant.
Also, the fruit is absolutely delicious. It’s the most versatile apple I’ve ever tried, as sweet and juicy in the hand as it is in a pie, crumble, or canned as applesauce. Our neighbors, even the ones with their own fruit trees, clamor for a bag of our Liberty apples every year. They’re that good.
I did not grow up around orchards, so as soon as an apple tree became part of my reality I realized I needed to do some research. It is considered best practice to prune your apple tree in the wintertime, to keep it from getting too overgrown and allow the tree to put ALL of its energy into making delicious fruit, not leggy branches.
There is an art to this sort of pruning. First, the “suckers” need to go. These are the exploratory, straight branches that grow up from the top part of the tree. They don’t seem to grow blossoms, just leaves, and their main goal is expansion. But they draw precious energy, so they must be trimmed. (Incidentally, they don’t go to waste; because they are very straight, I use them as plant stakes in our garden).
Next, I walk around the tree with handheld clippers and trim off any dead twigs, or twigs growing too close to one another, as well as branches attempting to grow at backward angles, a strange quirk of apple trees. Unchecked, they grow in such a tangle! (And there’s a deeper metaphor there, I’m sure.)
This annual pruning usually takes me most of a January morning, and when it’s done it’s quite the celebration. But the real celebration doesn’t happen until months later when the apples are heavy and fragrant on tidy (or closer to tidy) branches, ready for harvest, for sharing, for preservation, for nourishment.
All that to say: pruning is intentional.
Branches fall in the wind, crack under the weight of wayward raccoons, or shrivel in the hot summer sun. Loss occurs, just like it does for all of us. But pruning is intended. And Who is doing the pruning?
Sometimes, we must prune for ourselves. We must choose what stays and what goes. But sometimes, what seems like loss is actually pruning from a Hand beyond ours, a gentle trimming that can feel to us like death. We hate to lose anything we care about; this is natural.
But sometimes the joy—or at least the grace—is not felt until months later when we reach up and find fruit to harvest. At that moment, we can consider that pruning requires intention, and the Holiest Gardener intends nothing but our good.
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I always get sad to prune my roses too, but I now just listen for which parts want to be pruned and when. A tree recently was split and a big hunk fell. So they came to take the rest down later. I could feel the tree's pain and gently instructed its consciousness to withdraw when it was ready so it wouldn't suffer. My earliest remembrance of learning of death was devastation that flowers die. I cried for hours. Lately I am a lot more detached about even my roses. I love them dearly, but I also eat them and feel their essence become part of me. When they go, I know they are expressions of the one, and more will come to be expressed. and although I miss them, I'm a lot more okay with it. BTW - thank you for the gift subscription - I didn't even realize you'd given it to me until I was in the thick of dealing with the issues you are aware I am dealing with, so I won't go into it here.