100 Foot Oak Tree Dies

 Early in the spring, we noticed a 100 foot tall Oak tree wasn't leafing out as expected.  It only got leaves on about half of it's branches.  Finally two weeks ago, all the leaves died and we had to remove the tree as it could hit the house if it fell.  A crew of 6 men took 4 hours to cut the tree limb by limb from 100 feet to a short stump that is 4 feet in diameter.  They chipped up what they could and hauled away the rest.  Quite an impressive operation but we now have a big hole in our tree line.

Giant, Tall Elephant Ears

 The Elephant Ears around the Mimosa Tree are now over 8 feet tall with huge leaves.  In the first picture, you can see the giant stems coming out of the ground.  One of the interesting things about these is they were not planned.  There were some Elephant Ears around the Mimosa in it's old location.  We thought we pulled out all the Elephant Ear bulbs when moving the Mimosa but obviously we missed some and they have grown like crazy.  It must be the perfect location since none of our other Elephant Ears are this big.

Impressive Volunteer Plants

 Sometimes Mother Nature knows best.  The first picture is a Butterfly Bush that popped up in the garden behind the shed last year.  As you can see it has grown beautifully this year with a great shape and lots of flowers for the Butterflies.  The second picture shows the plants that popped up in one our potato pots after the potato harvest.  It appears we have a squash and some kind of melon trying to get a start.  Too bad it is so late in the season as I doubt they have time to produce any fruit.