The Money Tree
Posted by Fiona Nevile in Cottage tales | 13 comments
Baby money tree
Last year we made a terrible blunder. We left our prized giant money tree out in the garden at the end of the summer. I kept on spotting it during autumn forays in the garden and always was too busy to bring it inside. Those ‘tomorrow’ moments happen a lot with me and are almost always guaranteed to end in disaster. The weather turned cold and frosty and I hardly ventured outside. One day I discovered that the money tree had collapsed and died.
“Oh crikey,” I thought, “What’s going to happen now?”
You see, when I was given this tree, I was assured by the previous owner that ever since she’d had the tree they had always had enough money.
“We struggled before but when my sister gave me this money tree everything subtly changed. We didn’t become rich but we didn’t worry about money anymore as we had enough to keep us afloat.”
“But surely you shouldn’t tempt fate and give it away?”
But they were moving and it was too big to take with them.
Now this lady was not a fanciful type. She was an ex games teacher and very down to earth. I took the money tree but felt a bit awkward about it. Later I discovered that their house move had been a mistake and they lost a lot of money in the process.
That large money tree used to live on Danny’s desk in the Rat Room. It flowered once a year – which is a rare event apparently. In the summer it was carried down to the garden for a holiday.
Occasionally I ponder why I left the money tree out in the garden. Was I subconsciously tempting fate? Did I really believe the story of the money tree? To be quite honest with you I just don’t know.
But when I found it in a desolate heap in the garden my first reaction was to scuttle off to Homebase and buy a tiny replacement tree. This lives on the kitchen windowsill and is thriving. I discovered that houseplants enjoy a drink of beer – apparently they love the nutrients as much as Danny does. So it’s plied with the dregs from his beer cans. Sometimes I force it onto the wagon and give it a long soak in filtered rainwater.
These trees are also called jade, friendship or coffin trees. When I was growing up my mother told me that when they are planted in their native South African habitat, they can reach an amazing size and the trunks can be split open to store corpses before burial. This rather put me off the plant that she had on the veranda.
Meanwhile our money tree sits on a saucer filled with trophies from the garden – the small head of a china doll, a bottle stopper and stones with holes all the way through. It is flourishing and much loved.
And our bank balance?
Well it’s only a very small tree.
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This jade plant is also known as a money plant not a tree. A Money tree is quite different and has a twisted trunk. It is also know as a pachira aquatica. I have both. My 4 year old grandson chose the money tree for my son to give me for Mother’s day last year a the jade plant is from a cutting of my father’s plant which he had for years. I love them both.
Happy new year and thank you for the ecard! Good luck with the tree and thank you for reminding me that I put my only household plant in the greenhouse while we were away for Christmas and must go and rescue it.
Here they overwinter if they’re in a sheltered place, but I haven’t ever noticed my bank balance going up or down based on oh well it’s growing. 🙂 You might just be lucky though….I’ll keep my fingers crossed!
Im with Tanya.. how bizarre!
Fi, I just popped in to say thanks for the ecard..
Lovely way to start my day & Im glad you kept the promise to yourself & started them up again..
Happy New Year to yourself, D & all the others at CSH
Corpses??! I’ll never think of it the same way again.
I smiled when I read the last sentence about it only being a small tree…. the word enough is the key, however much we have we can always spend a bit more, find something we could buy or need that we wouldn’t have, but when there is ‘enough’ sometimes thats better than we think. Maybe as your needs grow so will the tree.
It is a Crassula Ovata. They do not grow that big, only a couple of metres at the most. Never big enough for a coffin. They need sunlight to flower.
We had one which sat on the hearth for many years and did well, then for no reason we could see it just gave up and died on us.
I had one for years. Would call it a friendship tree rather than money tree, but I lost it, can’t now remember how. However this autumn I was at my daughter’s and she had one, and also a small one that needed re-potting. Apparently a number of years ago she had a bit from my mother’s plant. Now I have one again, it’s doing quite well. Think I probably over-watered the last one so I will try not to do so this time, and I will give it the odd bit of beer every so often.
Well I’ve just been given a cutting and it’s sitting in water waiting for the roots to develop…as for the beer…not sure I can spare it…OK…but now and again….can’t manage to support two bad habits.