Just a quick update on the two cuttings here.

First the stronger, flourishing Silverhill:

Four weeks ago I wrote that “I will swear blind I saw the teensiest unmistakable shape of a Silverhill jujube fruit", that disappeared sometime after a storm. Well, four weeks later another six have since appeared!

Four weeks later to the day, the other, less impressive cutting is already winding down for winter, extracting what it can from the fruiting branchlets and leaves before dropping them. You may notice that the branchlets are more yellow.

This is somewhat early to be doing this. But this has been happening a fair bit in recent years, especially amongst very young trees.

I first noticed this here and it’s been like this every year since. We’ve barely had a summer, here at least. We have had days in the mid to high 30s, but mostly this season has been extended spring temperatures well into summer, temperature fluctuations of easily 5-10 °C from one week to the next, and plenty of overcast skies — all of these are sending mixed signals to the trees, and some think winter is coming, and respond accordingly.

One young Ta-Jan I especially recall dropped every single branchlet in December! It was literally a stick again. I marked it, just in case it never woke up again. Yet a month later it had fully regrown every branchlet, and then some. It came back much stronger than before, and if I hadn’t marked it I would have been oblivious as to its previous condition. It’s still a bright glossy green looking exactly as it should be looking right now.

Most of the trees aren’t affected like this though, and the older trees especially weather (ha!) it better. Maybe this coming season will be better ovreall…?