A time to die

What you see in the photograph is an approximately 40ft tall pine tree that we built our house around as a focal point of the landscape. We were concerned about the tree even before building the house because it looked like it was sickly then. That was two years ago. Now, it is definitely not savable. My friend Reba suggested that it may be the pine beetles or some such thing. Upon closer inspection, there are tiny little holes all over the tree. It looks like someone has been throwing darts at the tree with uncanny accuracy. Millions of holes from this pest have taken our tree.

We are planning on removing it and replacing it with a large water garden. I really want to do this, but am not sure if I will be able to work with the plants enough to keep them alive. Time will tell…

A time to plant

On a more joyful note, we brought home a beautiful white azalea from mother’s memorial service a few weeks ago. I am happy to report that I have not managed to kill it yet.

For those of you who don’t know, I have no green part of my body, anywhere, including my thumbs! Anyway, isn’t it just beautiful? Apparently this azalea is not meant to be in the ground in this part of the country, so it will live out it’s life in ever increasing sized pots. Probably embedded in the pond foliage somewhere.