Pacific Northwest Gardening: Garden Pics: Breakin' Our Backs for Beautiful Blooms! #10, 1 by Rarejem

Rarejem wrote:
So I have to share this with you all as I know that you will understand.....

The garden I have been working on for the last two weekends has taken me a long time to complete because it has been hugely depressing and hard to stick to finishing up. My main rose garden.... I lost at least 7 that had been here for ten years, and have had to cut enormous amounts of others out....some basically down to the ground when they had been over seven feet tall. Some are coming back well, but some are looking like they are making a valiant effort that will eventually fail. Towards the end of this bed was my wonderful eucalyptus tree that I had splurged on about four years ago. It is a slow growing variety, but had gotten to be a beautiful 10 or so foot tall (in spite of the hemlock that it was planted by being uprooted in a storm a couple of years ago). I was thrilled that I had found a protected enough spot in my yard for it to grow well....I had even cut my first boquet from it last year. Then came this horrid winter.........and my wonderful tree turned brown and dead.

In May and June, I had examined it carefully, and found it to be brittle and ....well....dead. Nothing green to be seen anywhere...... I finally had stopped looking because it made me very sad every time I confirmed that it was just not alive any more. I didn't cut it or pull it, because somewhere in the back of my mind I was holding out just a sliver of hope........

This is the tree and the big root ball of the hemlock that dropped (the eucalyptus is to the center-left...the dead lookig thing)