So, there we were, Carmelo and me, standing around discussing the state of the front yard. I was getting ready to have some new accent lighting put in to kind of spiff up the way the house looked at night and was commenting to him how it would be nice to have another tree in the front, closer to the road. “You’ve already got one”, says Carmelo, pointing to a growth in the middle of some red yucca that had been there for years. “Your tree gave birth to a baby.”

We walked over to the red yuccas, and sure enough a new tree had sprouted up in the middle. I don’t know what kind of tree it is – people round these parts seem to only know mesquites and palo verdes, and this isn’t either. The previous owner of the house told me it was a pistachio tree, but from looking at a couple of Arizona botanical websites, I don’t think so. It’s a nice tree, though, with small leaves and bright red berries from time to time. The mockingbirds have used the main tree as a nest in recent years, and I’m hoping the mourning doves might consider it for a nursey this year since I moved the planter they had two broods in last year from its location by the side gate to a strategic fork of branches in the same tree.

There were three red yuccas surrounding the new sprout, and it was Carmelo’s suggestion that one of them go to allow the new tree to really be noticed. Which he did, and which it has:

…and you can see how big the new tree is over on the right side below:

“Junior” is a cute little guy who is presently growing like a weed – almost a foot since we removed the red yucca more than a month ago. The fact that the mature tree created enough of a root system in order to generate this new tree suggests to me that it probably was the culprit behind the sewer line issues we had several years ago. Still, it’s a nice addition to the front yard, and in an absolutely perfect place that is only going to make it more attractive as it grows larger in the years to come.