I ordered a Catalpa tree from a nursery on the web. I always liked Catalpa trees, especially in the spring when they have those big fragrant white flowers that contrast with the large heart shaped leaves. I liked to think of them as the heart of spring blooming.
It took several weeks for my tree to come and when it arrived it was more like a 3 ft flimsy stick than a tree. It came with a bamboo stake to hold it up and seemingly had no strength to hold itself up. For the entire first year, my wife and I periodically checked the tree to see if it was ready to have the stake removed and stand on its own. Each time we removed it, the tree practically bent over to the ground when the wind blew, and we quickly restaked it.
By the second year, the tree had hardly grown at all and looked weak as ever. We watered it, fertilized it, and... nothing. I was thinking, this is a defective tree! It must have an inherent weakness or disease. Finally, I got tired of worrying about the tree and removed the stake. I figured it could live or die, but I wasn't going to baby it anymore.
Within a month, the tree stiffened up and began to grow. By the end of that year, it hardly looked like the same tree. It was strong, putting out new branches, and looked vibrant. It was thriving.
My wife and I have five children, and looking at that tree from our back deck this spring, we realized the important lesson that our little tree was trying to teach us. How often, in our attempt to support our children, do we make the mistake of staking them too long? How often do we see them struggling and assume there is something wrong with them, instead of rethinking our approach to being their parents? It's scary pulling that stake out and making them stand in the wind, but that's the only way they will develop their own roots. That little Catalpa tree taught us a lot.
Church Saufley