Yeah, you get to a certain age, and you think, okay, there are some things I can do well....or at least good enough. Discovering you've been watering trees wrong your entire life is not something I expected to learn about myself after hiring an arborist to help me with our aging tangerine tree. A beloved 50-year-old tangerine tree planted by my father back when I was a teenager. But I did learn something new and I'm hoping I can nurse it back to some level of better health.
The journey began two years ago when water restrictions and scorching temperatures hit Southern California hard. Our tangerine tree, which had just produced a magnificent harvest of hundreds of fruits, started dropping yellowing leaves at an increasing rate. Caught between conflicting advice—one expert saying it needed more water, another claiming it needed less—I watched helplessly as this living family heirloom continued to struggle, its branches becoming increasingly bare.
What the arborist revealed was both simple and revolutionary: trees don't absorb water near their trunks. All those years of carefully directing water to the base of our trees had missed the mark entirely. The fine, absorptive roots exist farther out from the trunk, and proper watering requires reaching these distant zones. She showed me how the tree was literally folding in on itself to conserve resources, a silent cry for help I hadn't recognized. The experience transformed my understanding not just of our tangerine tree, but of our majestic redwood as well. Sometimes the most profound gardening lessons come when we least expect them, and usually after decades of doing something the wrong way. Want to hear more stories about navigating life's learning curves with humor and heart? Subscribe to Only Child Diaries wherever you get your podcasts, and join me in figuring out this adulting thing together.
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