Beginner Gardening: what smoked my smokebush?, 0 by pastime

pastime wrote:
It did it some time in the summer. It turned brown and crunchy and lost it's leaves. When we cut it down I thought that was it. Bye, bye tree. But it grew back the next year and it did it again. I have another one on the other side of the arbor and it did not do that. Go figure. I cut them both back in the fall. Otherwise they would take over the area and I have other plantings there now. I like their color next to the rusty, iron arbor and I think they add a little garden interest. Here's a picture I took this morning of the one on the right side of the arbor. The other one I keep shorter because I have lots of dayliles growing around it. All the growth is coming out of the old stump. They tend to have weaker branches now and want to fall over. I have no idea what species they are or if they were meant to be smoke trees or smoke bushes. They were planted way before the arbor and patio were there. If a branch gets too tall and floppy, I cut it off. I like their color, that why I keep them, but as single specimens they would look funny and floppy.