TURNER – Daniel Poland, 76, has grown suspicious of his plants.
After a lifetime of caring for all things green – he worked as a tree surgeon in Lewiston for nearly 50 years – he’s begun to expect blossoms in too-tiny plants and fruit where it doesn’t belong. It’s all part of a friendly father-daughter feud.
“We’ve been doing this all our lives,” said Poland of his practical jokes with his middle daughter, Kim “She does something, then I do something else,” he said. It’s never mean. It never hurts. Nobody gets mad.
However, both father and daughter can be darned sneaky. They’ve climbed trees, slipped into each other’s homes and vandalized vegetable beds.
Springtime plantings have been replaced with grocery store harvests. Overnight, tomato plants have spawned bright red fruit tied to their stems with string, and fuzzy little vines have sprouted banana-sized cucumbers.
“It’s our thing,” said Kim Merchant, who was one of eight kids. She now has a daughter of her own.
That’s how she and her father played. They’re still doing it.
Mate needed
“The last was the best one yet,” Poland said Thursday, sitting in his easy chair and staring at a bright green orange tree.
About four years ago, Merchant brought the tree home from Florida.
As a tree expert, he knew the fruit wouldn’t come unless it had a mate. That finally came last winter, when Merchant’s brother-in-law returned from Florida. The new tree was put indoors with the other. And Poland waited.
Suddenly, oranges the size of pencil erasers appeared.
“I thought they were real,” Poland said. “I really did.”
Instead, they were beads. She had sneaked in when he was out and carefully hung them from branches.
After all, no one guessed he’d actually grow a Maine orange.
When Merchant’s sister dropped by weeks later, she plucked one off the tree and challenged her dad to eat it. He didn’t. It was too hard.
Instead, Poland called Merchant.
“I told her, I’m going to throw a fish in your swimming pool.'”
Merchant laughed. “I got him,” she said. “But he got me better.”
A few weeks later, real tropical fruit began to sprout from the branches. On Thursday, the count was 52 in all. And some of these oranges are already the size of golf balls.
“I told Kim she could have the first one,” Poland said.
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