My Persian Mulberry Tree

A mistake for sure. And yet, how could it be?

I bought a Persian Mulberry Tree on Sunday, and I’m certain it was a mistake. When I got home, I read about them. I read how they drop dark, juicy fruit, staining anything beneath them: cars, driveways, patios, the top of your head. And worse, I read that the birds that delight in the berries (for, apparently, they do) then go on to drop… er… droppings… that are also berry-colored.

I have no excuse except to say I was seduced. Seduced by the very name: Persian mulberry. It sounds so romantic. It is romantic. It sounds ancient and gorgeous and sexy, and Persian, and mulberry, and biblical, and I don’t know what. A mature specimen is said to cast gorgeous shade. It has triangular toothed leaves. And the fruit is described as ambrosiac—far better than measly blackberries I read again and again.

But, I have no room in my back “garden” for it. Garden is in quotation marks because there is a sea of cement in the back, cement in which I’ve punched a few holes and last fall planted a Fuyu persimmon, a French fig, and a Meyer lemon. The latter two will almost assuredly have to be moved. My son sent me the footprint finally for the ADU he wants to have built in the back when we can afford it (that may be a while), and the fig and lemon are in the way. They will have to be moved.

Last night, I made myself an orange-themed gin and tonic (with orange bitters and an orange peel twist) and sat on the stairs gazing at the yard. It was getting close to six and therefore pretty. The light was falling in horizontal lines and making everything glow instead of beating down and washing everything out as it does mid-day. The young persimmon, all leafed out in a tender, lime-green coat, was already casting a bit of shade on the old teak bench nearby.

I moved around the space with my delightful G&T in a nice heavy glass and thought how perfect a cocktail is sometimes. It allowed me to simply be in the garden—to relax enough to feel the space and not be in a rush to do anything. I moved about, examining the space from the bench alongside the shed, from the teak bench by the persimmon, from the stairs. After some time, I brought the baby mulberry to a spot near the stairs. I measured the distance from the fig and the lemon (both of which, as we know, will have to be moved, so it’s a moot point) and they were the requisite ten feet away.

It’s a possible place for the mulberry, but it’s close to the house, close to any path that might someday exist, and the berries might get on the bottoms of peoples’ shoes or be otherwise annoying. Just to be safe though, I called my Iranian friend Shirin whose husband planted a Persian mulberry a few years ago in his (much bigger) (and less sunny) yard and asked if she and hubby could come by to examine my choice. We can have an orange G&T and discuss the siting of a baby mulberry tree.

I have an oak too—a California Live Oak—and I’ve chosen a place for that too, in the back left corner. Perhaps there will be too many trees in the yard. Perhaps they will be too big. But you know what? By that time, I’ll be long gone one way or another. It will be someone else’s problem.

I take all of this far too seriously. I need to simply plant the trees, plant the sages also that I also unadvisedly bought today, and the other things too… the mallow, the oh-I-don’t-know-what, but there’s a good deal of it. Ugh, the truth is, I should not have even gone to the nursery. I should have gone dancing instead. I’m on a budget, and it’s foolish to create a garden when we may be trying to build a unit back there.

And yet… the garden. A garden. Can I live without a garden? When I was outside enjoying my drink and pondering the yard, I heard the kids next door playing in theirs. I could see them flash by through the chain link fence covered with disintegrating bamboo sticks as they raced around the garden paths, passing Japanese pines, robust and fragrant rosemary bushes, and raised beds of collard and chard.

What is it that’s charming about a garden, that’s essential?

It’s life, that’s what it is. It moves in the breeze. It grows. Leaves unfurl, and they’re a tremendous, precious tone of green, and then they change. They mature. They deepen, become leathery. And in the case of the persimmon, they then turn a fiery red and drop, creating a poignant blazing pool of color at their feet.

The fig too… she had barely any branches at all for the entire winter. She was just a grey stick poking up from the concrete looking beyond silly. Now she has several handsome silver branches reaching out. They’re thin and fragile, but they’re her skeleton, and they’re growing fast. And the lemon! She’s only two feet tall and already loaded with flowers and little green ripening lemons. It’s quite something.

In fact, it’s enthralling. It doesn’t really matter what happens, whether I stay or go, whether we sell this place, or not. Even if I know longer own it, I know I’ll drive by and admire the buckeye I planted in the front, that’s three feet tall now, and the madrone that’s a bit taller and spindly of trunk, and admire their beauty as the years pass.

They are mine. They are my babies. My stake in the ground. My home, my gift. They signify beauty, hope, potential. They calm me. They do their thing, without complaint. Each tree and plant is utterly unique. It grows in its own way and manner, and its expression can only come from its unique environment: wind, water, nutrients, sun, the care I give, the care I forget or neglect to give.

They’re less than perfect. There is no such thing as perfect. A bend in the trunk that looks imperfect brings unique, breath-taking beauty. They serve many purposes for me, these trees I plant here and there. In addition to being beautiful, serene, and determined, they ground me and remind me that we are all flawed, and that our flaws make us beautiful.