Our lemon tree has finally worked out that photosynthesis is not optional and has started growing new leaves.

Is it weird to think of a tree as being stupid? A couple of months ago, coming into spring, it burst out in flowers, some of which started to turn into tiny fruit (cf. buds, pollination). This would have been great except that, partly due to it being in the exposed corner of our balcony and taking the full force of the bizarre windy weather we’ve had in Sydney over the last year, it had maybe a dozen leaves left, many of which were in pretty bad shape. Supporting young’uns in that situation seemed like it would be a losing battle.

The tree seemed to reach the same conclusion, so it dropped the fruit and most of the flowers, even after I moved it to the other side of the balcony where it’s less likely to be stripped bare in a freak gale (although it’s getting a bit less sun now). And in the last week or so it got around to sprouting some new leaves. I’m happy for it, but I can’t help but look at it and think… why didn’t you just do that in the first place and save yourself all the trouble, not to mention our false hope that we’ll get some early lemons?

Stupid tree.