Do you have notches or pen marks on your door jamb? Not the sort left by a misbehaving son or daughter, no I’m talking about the milestone marks some parents put on a door or wall or other permanent place that is unlikely to move or be removed.

Sadly due to circumstances, I have never had the pleasure of a permanent house, let alone a door, as we have moved house more often than I care to mention. Not by choice, but that’s another story. But why, you may ask, am I talking about door jambs in a post about an apple tree sapling? I can assure you it is not too tenuous a link…

Our apple sapling has grown from an apple pip of the first apple my first born son ate as you will see from my earlier posts, and like our son who has been moved around the country as part of our nomadic existence, so too has our apple tree followed us; sitting obediently in its small pot year after year, move after move.

Not unlike our son, it has been compliant and obedient, taking on our new environs without too much fuss, slowly but surely growing just a little bit more as the plant pot of its birth allowed.

But now, as with my missing door jamb record, whilst it is very obvious our sapling has grown, I cannot say by how much each month or when there was a particular noteworthy growth spurt. As with my son, all I can say for sure is that growth has indeed occurred and whilst our little tree is not towering above me (unlike my first born son who relentlessly torments me with “you’re so short now”) it has without doubt grown.

I am of course delighted (about the tree, that is, not my son tormenting me), however I have also noticed something is not quite right with its leaves and I wonder if the restriction we placed on it by leaving it in its small pot for so long and moving it around from place to place has caused it some stress.

Strange white dusting on some leaves

I was told the white coating could well be stress related and that it should go once it was planted out, but that was over three years ago and the white leaf problem is still there.

So whilst I have no record to remark on at some future date, I am hopeful that our vagrant wanderings, whilst lacking in roots, has served it well as my pastoral care has helped fortify and create a worldly-wise tree that will continue to do well long after I stop worrying about it and the white dusting will in due course go.

But you know what? I’m going to start measuring growth from now…not my son’s obviously – I cannot think his skin will stretch any further to accommodate him!

My strapping sapling measures 108cm