So, technically, my Harry Lauder’s Walking Stick is not dead. Sadly, it isn’t just hibernating for the winter either. It is actually dying of a fungal disease called Eastern Filbert Blight. I have to say that even though it’s a pretty nasty disease for my poor plant, that name just jumps off the page, doesn’t it? I think it’s the “Filbert” that does it. It sounds so friendly, and yet it is so deadly.
But, let’s go back to the beginning when I first met Harry.
I bought Harry not because of the beautiful flowers or foliage that would eventually unfurl from his branches; I bought him because of the way his boughs curled and tendrilled around each other after they had dropped all of their leaves in the fall. I love all things spooky, and it seemed like the perfect eerie addition to my front yard.
Every year, the green curling leaves all along the spiraling branches would slowly darken and drift to the ground, leaving behind the swirling whirling twigs. The other plants in my garden didn’t stand a chance over the majestic bones of Harry lording over them all with his magnificent bone structure.
As the years went by, I noticed that some branches stayed nude throughout the year. Odd, I thought, but nothing I worried too much about. From these thoughts, you can probably tell that I have a horrible brown thumb. I always look for the lowest maintenance plants for our yard, even going so far as to get rid of all of the grass and replace it with wood chips and annual and perennial plants.
I did eventually start to worry because while a few bare spots on Harry weren’t too alarming, part of his charm was his gradual disrobing. It just wasn’t the same if he was going to stand there in the nude all year. I bent down and looked closely at his branches. Little diamond-shaped black blotches marched up and down a few of his branches. I immediately looked it up, and discovered, horror of horrors--Harry had been infected with Filbert Blight! Sadly, I learned too late that if you start to see these blotches, you should trim the branches as quickly as possible to get rid of the fungus. If the blotches had reached any of the main branches, it was too late.
My heart broke. My beautiful part-time nudist, Harry, was slowly dying.
My heartbreak, while deep, was also quick-healing. I started thinking about buying another Harry Lauder’s Walking Stick to take Harry the First’s place. However, on one of my daily walks in the summer, I saw another Walking Stick, and it too was full of barren patches. The blight had apparently taken hold in my neighborhood.
In the fall and the winter, Harry still flaunts his naked form, and if I don’t look too closely, I can still imagine him bursting into full bloom in the summer.
Those twisting branches are still beautiful in all of their sinuous curves and curls. Harry the First will always have a place in my heart no matter what I eventually plant in his place.
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