The Apple Tree That Bloomed in October

October 10, 1817

On this day, in the charming town of Canterbury, the garden of a certain Mr. Pringuer — a humble maker of breeches — became the talk of the town. His apple tree, contrary to all expectation and botanical propriety, burst into blossom in the middle of autumn. The tree was reported to be full and lovely, as if spring had arrived out of turn. Imagine the scene: neighbors craning over the fence, visitors streaming in, the local papers noting how the garden was “thronged with people who traveled far and wide to see the tree.”

I think Vita Sackville-West would have approved of such a story, for she loved a garden that misbehaved. “Give me the unexpected,” she might have said, “for surprises are the gardener’s true inheritance.”

Indeed, almost two hundred years later, our gardens still manage to astonish us. We know it well: the plant that promised abundance but delivered nothing; the frail seedling that somehow outstripped all others; the shrub that withers under our careful eye, while its neglected neighbor thrives; the flower that dares the first frost and comes through unscathed. To that catalogue of quirks and defiance, let us add Mr. Pringuer’s apple tree, blooming bravely out of season, in October of 1817.

And what of this year’s surprises in my own garden? There was the single apple on one of the young trees in my little orchard — a lone jewel, too heavy for its fragile bearer, but carried nonetheless. There was the sudden and complete demise of all five hydrangeas in the front garden at Maple Grove, felled by a summer too hot to forgive. There was the vigorous and unwanted arrival of string algae in the water features — an adversary worthy of Greek mythology, near impossible to banish. And then, most sweet of all, there was joy — unexpected joy — in the weeding of the cabin garden. With the new sunken path raising the bed, there is no more stooping among boulders. Now, at last, it is a delight to tend those forty feet of flowers, every tug at a weed a small victory.

So yes, surprises come — some bitter, some delightful. And like Mr. Pringuer’s apple tree, they remind us that the garden is no obedient servant but a living, wilful companion, full of mischief, mystery, and occasional marvels.