Willowy frame

I have a willow tree. I've had it for about four and a half years, since I took at as a cutting from the old A Rocha site before they moved. At that point, and in that blog post, it looked like this:

It rooted itself, as willow trees are wont to do, and I wrote an update in 2012, when it looked like this, about 5 feet tall:

And I still have this tree. The pot is bigger but it is still potted. And seems to be doing more or less ok. It's about 8 feet tall now. It's focusing less on leafing and more on trunking at the moment.

Trees, and willow trees in particular, are not really at their best in pots. They like to sink down deep roots. A friend of mine has a property with a creek and offered to let me plant my tree there so it could put down roots and be happy. I intended to do that. I do intend to do that. But when the time came I decided I wanted to keep my tree a bit longer. It's the only living thing that depends on me (apart from a few violets, who are also dear to my heart). I sit by it, as you can see. I've said before that living in Canada as an immigrant I don't always feel very rooted and I think my willow tree and I are both potted plants. We do the best we can in our pots, and we grow, but at some point we would benefit from sinking our roots into the ground. Neither of us are native but we're both doing the best we can. So for the moment I will keep my willow tree.