Here's a photo taken last weekend, when Mum and Dad went up to water the orchard:
They're recognisable now as trees, small trees but still, they're trees!
Hard to believe that this is what they looked like when we planted them back in October 2004, less than 3 and a half years earlier.
They were only about the height of a pencil! We coddled them yes - they got cages, they got irrigation pipes set up, they got pea straw; later they even got shadecloth to protect from the wind & frost. But they started off TINY.
By September 2005, they'd grown to just over knee height:
Over the course of that summer they shot up to about chest height. Here they are in April 2006 swaddled in their shadecloth to protect from the frosts soon to come:
It was a tough winter that year and most of the trees hit the roof of their cage, so started to bush out rather than go up. (We later took the roof off and put side extensions). Here they are in December 2006:
By October 2007 they were all doing well and most taller than a person:
And finally, by mid January 2008, here Dad is with one of the biggest that's over twice his height!
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