“Lemon tree very pretty and the lemon flower is sweet
But the fruit of the poor lemon is impossible to eat.”

I honestly didn’t even know I knew these lyrics.***

But, I am a boomer and I inhaled these lyrics while snacking on potato chips, sipping Coca Cola, sitting at our gray formica and chrome table, in our kitchen with the pink refrigerator, wearing my cut-off shorts, and my white Ked “tennis shoes” even though I had yet to play tennis! I had a pixie haircut, was tall for my age and what people referred to as “skinny.”  What I wouldn’t give to be skinny again!

Oh, and I had tanned skin. I am very fair with light eyes and I had to burn the top layer of my skin off in order to tan.  With baby oil and iodine and/or “suntan lotion” that made me burn faster, allegedly.  I am paying for the tanned skin now.

Did you know that Coco Chanel popularized tanning in the 1920s?  Up until then, only the poor were tanned because they had no choice but to work outdoors. But, I digress.

And the memories, such as this memory about lemon tree lyrics, show up unannounced.  It’s kinda crazy.

So, back to the present.

Today, I followed a path into this secret garden.

How can you not go through this arch when given the chance?

And what a reward!

Potted lemon trees bearing lemons.

Oh, and p.s., there was a potted orange tree too. But I don’t know any lyrics or poems about orange trees.

Or, do I?

No, I don’t. What a relief.

And a potted camellia tree/shrub, which wasn’t doing so well, and made me miss Seattle where camellias are blooming beautifully right now.

The light pink camellia blossoms don’t show well in this photo, but they were really not doing well.

Oh, and another p.s., this isn’t really a secret garden.  It is the entryway for the Leather School of Santa Croce. Anyone who has stamina to walk a long way to enter the leather school can see the potted plants and more!

***Will Holt wrote Lemon Tree in the 1950s, basing the tune on a Brazilian folk score arranged by Jose Carlos Burle and made popular by Wilson Simonal. The lyrics compare love to a lemon tree: the tree is pretty, the flower is sweet, but the fruit is impossible to eat.  Hmm.  Interesting.  Thanks to Wikipedia, as usual.

I probably listened to the song on the radio in the late 1950s or 1960s.  My dad always had the radio on in his truck and in our house. I might have heard the version recorded by Peter, Paul and Mary, or by The Kingston Trio or any other number of recording artists from the period. In 1965, Trini Lopez’s recorded version of Lemon Tree hit number 20 on the Hot 100 and I probably heard it, and memorized it unknowingly, that year. :-))