growth

What are you living in the shadow of?

In the backyard of my sister’s holiday house where I’m currently staying is this palm tree on the right of and growing very close to a larger gum tree. The palm is living it’s life in the shadow of the other tree and you can see that it’s not as big or as luscious as palm trees usually are. In fact, it looks mangy and emaciated. Not flourishing. The leaves are small, few and far between. They fall off easily. This palm tree is not exactly fulfilling its full potential.

That’s because the shadow from the other tree blocks the sunlight, and they’re so close to each other that their root systems have got to be entangled and choking each other. It’s probably fair to say that as a result the slightly larger tree isn’t growing to its full potential either.

Now I’m sure that my sister’s septic system is glad these two trees aren’t growing gangbusters, because they’d be sending their roots down into it. Or at least, it would be glad if septic systems had feelings; which I’m pretty sure they don’t. They’d be pretty cranky at all the crap they have to put up with.… Continue reading…