Another Random Death

Welp, around the time last year that we knew that our trees were dying and  needed to come down, we gave up hope for the photinia x fraseri. 

The previous year this evergreen had randomly dropped its leaves overnight - or at least within a week. I walked out one day and gone. Skeletonized 😳

It was a complete mystery to me.
Husband, however, wasn't so puzzled. 

We'd planted it too close to the house to begin with and he always hated that thing since it required high trimming. So in a fit of rage he pruned it more than I'd (and maybe he'd! 😆) realized. (Disclaimer: if he's ever had a fit of rage in his life it hasn't been in the 20 years that I've known him. An overly enthusiastic, possibly in a fit of frustration trimming is probably more accurate.)

It did get some new growth, so we left it alone, but it remained real sad and looked like this all last summer...

Slightly different from the vibrant behemoth it had been for close to 10 years (well ok, it took several years to become a behemoth of course).

With  new trees  in sight, it had to go.

But holy giant shrub, Batman! This thing SUCKED to remove!

It really was like removing a tree. A very, very fluffy, possibly fighting-back tree.

Digging with all my might while husband sawzalls the giant branches in the background. I finally had to call him over to do his worst on the largest roots because my clippers weren't cutting it and that stump was not budging!

Finally, freeeeeee!!!

It made quite the stick bundles for our saintly yard waste collectors! 😬

But that stump, sheesh! It only took 7 months before we finally got it to the dump.

We have a lovely new blank canvas into which I can plan our front beds properly! Buuuut first there's one little humongous problem...

Over the years thistles have grown up around it. It started with a few I tried to pull out and then got more and more and the last couple of years they have been completely out of control. Come to find out they have a vast underground root system; the tap roots can go FEET deep. The connecting roots are incredibly brittle, though, so the second you tug, it breaks and you've just created fuel for its happy, wicked spread. These are demons in plant form, no doubt about that!

Multiple people in my "environmentally-friendly gardening" group have said that this is the ONLY thing for which they use weed killer. This is a very very VERY anti-chemical group, so that tells you something! 

Unfortunately I didn't know all of that when I decided we now had a wide open bed so that I could aggressively rip out all the roots! That of course made them spread worse. 😩

So I am now clipping them off as they pop up, very carefully spraying the base and then I covered the whole area with about 8" of leftover mulch of which I have an abundance. I'll leave it be for this year to keep tabs on what comes up and let the soil recover from the chemicals and then next year I hope to plant plant plant!