Ploetry: Native Dogwood - Unconditional Love

Preface

The following is from a recollection of experiences with many customers. Although, I have helped rehab several plants, never have I done so, nor attempted to restore a native dogwood. This is beyond me.

Rightfully so, there is much love and loyalty given by owners of these wonderfully attractive and interesting trees.

Among other maladies, way too many dogwoods in this and other areas have been and are suffering from dogwood anthracnose, a rarely repairable/reversible disease. Most of the possible solutions are chemical and involved - rarely successful, at least, not economically.

Valued and cherished for their bark, their branch structure and definitely the foliage and blossoms, it is rare an owner of a dogwood will easily part with these gorgeous trees.

It didn't take long for me to succumb to native dogwoods' fate and more so, my customers' desires.

The mourning would be delayed and I was to keep this wonderful plant alive as long as acceptable by its loved one.

________________________________________________________________

Native Dogwood - Unconditional Love

Gifted, gorgeous, many say

Chosen, planted, admired

Awe for many a child

Flattery from many a neighbor

Branches of character

Bark to intrigue

Blessed with leaves not much less than 

Blooms a camellia may envy

A life of glory for my host

An heirloom, generations served

Unconditional love

Now, in decline, retreat

Branches dead, others near death,

Producing petioles short-lived

Leaves which cannot wait 'til fall, to fall

It's all, all I can muster

As I have lost my luster

Diseased, my wounds pruned away 

The host wants me to stay,

Stay forever, as I slowly waste away

Now in hospice,

Yet, life has been grand

All we have shared

They deny my demise and will keep me until

Only my trunk is the memory of what I once was

Unconditional love 

Knowing I may be replaced by a relative, 

Such as a kousa dogwood, not native to this soil

Or, perhaps a distant cousin,

A crepe myrtle or a japanese maple

They will serve well

Years of enjoyment to come

More than I was able

Yes, I was gifted, and gorgeous

And, very well loved