Climate Control Through Plant Growing. I am the Ultimate Plant Lover when it comes to appreciating our rare Rose Apple Tree that provides a lot of shade on our front yard. This is a story of how it may have been the deciding factor between a very large bill to install a new gas meter, and the company picking up the tab.

Date:   6/23/2008 9:36:31 AM ( 16 y ago)

7:02 AM
June 23, 2008


We live on a very hot street. There is a lot of cement. In Summer the temperature can make a
person really sweat. We have a very large Rose Apple Tree in our front yard. A Rose Apple
Tree has big limbs. It is a Tropical Tree. I love our Rose Apple Tree Very much. It is a great
conversation piece. No one around here has ever seen a Rose Apple Tree.

During June, our Rose Apple Tree has delightful flowers, then the flowers
turn into the fruit. By September, we have an enormous crop of the most delightful Rose Apples.
Rose apples taste like a Rose. They are Cruchy like an apple. There is a big seed in each Rose Apple.
The seed bounches around inside the fruit. Day after day, we are in Rose Apple Heaven. Every morning,
the front pathway of our house, is filled with Rose Apples. This goes on for about five weeks. Every
morning, there is a free breakfast provided by our Rose Apple tree.

Our Rose Apple tree is so rare that when guests bite into the fruit, they are amazed. "What kind
of a tree is this?" They ask. I do not say it is a Rose Apple. I say it is a new invention. If the person
says there name is Melody, then I say, It is called a Melody Tree. If a person says, that their name is
Jonathan, then I say, I just invented the tree. It is called a Jonathan Tree. It gives our guests a nice
feeling to know that there is a tree that has been named with their name. They feel esteemed.

When I stick the large seed of the Rose Apple Tree in the ground under the Mother Tree, there
are numbers of little Trees that grow. Sometimes the seeds grow by themselves.

One day, we had to do an extensive Gas Line Repair to install a new Electric Meter. Their was
a lot of tension around this improvement. Numbers of agencies had to coordinate
efforts. Who was going to pay for this extensive repair?

The day one of the city agents came by, I was looking for some kind of common ground.

There are two chairs under the Rose Apple Tree and lots of shade. It was a very hot day.
We sat under the big tree for about fifteen minutes. We both felt a lot of relief from the
heat of the day. The climate was definitely about 20 degrees cooler. There was a little
breeze, and cool moisture coming up from the ground.

Our Rose Apple Tree helped make friends. The city employee originally came during fruit season.
He was totally amazed by the taste of the Rose Apples. I was looking for a way to win him over.
I offered him a Rose Apple Seeding. He wanted one, but he did not want to take this gift, because
he thought it might not look good that he was receiving a gift from a customer who was part of a
negotation.

He felt O.K. receiving a a tiny seed. He was from the Phillipines. He loved plants, and was a gardener
himself, but he had never ever seen such a magnificent tree.

There were men who came from city government, designer engineers, men from the gas
department and plumbers. It finally was decided how the repair would be done. At first, they planned
was to dig a big trench in our front yard. It looked like I was going to lose a number of plant friends.
It appeared as if we would have to tear up the deck so they could get to the old meter.

Ultimately, there was no trench and there was no digging up of the deck.

They designer was influenced by my love of plants on our front yard.

A very advanced tool made an underground hole under the
driveway. The tool did a kind of arthoscopic surgery.

When all was said and done, there was no charge for this extensive project that involved
installing a new gas meter. The project took three days of work and more than eight people
on the project.

I never heard from the man who worked from the city, but I suspect that a Tiny Seed
may have been the difference between an enormous bill and a tab picked up by
the gas company.

Those twenty minutes on a very hot day, and the coolness and comfort under
our lovely Rose Apple may have been the deciding factor.