When we recycled our Christmas tree (along with several others discarded curbside by holiday arbor tards in the immideate area) in January at the city collection station set up in the L.A. Zoo parking lot not only did we get a couple of free energy efficient light bulbs, but also as part of the citywide “million trees” campaign I scored an afghan pine sapling and a Carolina cherry sapling that I soon transplanted from their little plastic cups to more substantial cribs in the backyard.

The cherry tree took off like a shot and is doing great but the wee bitty pine took a little bit longer to get going beyond its initial six-inch length that looked a little bit like this:

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Half a year later, I’m happy to say the baby’s bulked up a bit as shown in this similar pot-rim perspective:

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And let’s pull back to show her off standing tall now at more than 13 inches:

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Let’s see, what is that… more than 100% growth in six months? Wow.

UPDATE (07.26): In the comments, reader Tim asked why no cherry tree picture, and he’s right. I was remiss not to include it. Resolved:

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