Beauty Captured - Twenty-Eight

I thought another tour through the garden would be good today.  

I had heard on the weather report that we were in for a intense wind storm, so I went out as it was starting to capture some photos of the flowers, just in case it got ugly.  Little did I know what would happen!  

Astilbe.  I moved this one this year and it’s doing so much better.  

Lilies!  My different lilies have started to bloom, I really love these ones because of their burgundy colour.  

These are my favourite lilies we have.  When they bloom the blossoms are as large as dinner plates, and they are a beautiful rich yellowy orange.  

Some clustered roses.  They are a lovely rosey red.  

Sunflowers!  I didn’t plant a lot of them, but this one was the giant.  The petals are so frilly and the seeded center is so intricate!  It’s so fun to watch a giant sunflower grow.  I could see by how tall it was on the fence how much it had grown each day.  

Sometimes I think the back of sunflowers are just as interesting as the front.  These were a small variety, but the mix of colours is lovely.  

And from the front!  

And zinnias.  This was the first year I’ve planted them, and the ones I chose are a variety so each plant has multiple colours of blooms.  Really nice.  

And then the wind and rain storm came with a vengeance all night long and into the next day.  The next morning I was talking to my older son in his room and woosh we saw the tree blow into his window.  I said to him, “wow the wind is getting strong”, and he said - “No mom look, the tree split again!”.  We went out to check on our tree out front.  

It’s a Manitoba Maple and it was a little sapling when we planted it 15 years ago,  it’s grown to be at least 50 feet high over the house.  Last summer one of the three base sections of the tree split off.  We had hoped we could save the tree and cinched it together with strapping.  Though it didn’t look as healthy as it could we were hopefull it would recover.  

Well the wind storm and rain snapped the strapping and anchors we had on the tree and a whole section was splitting away about to fall on the house.  

I wasn’t quite sure what to do as my husband is in Mexico City on a missions trip with the team....here my sons and I are in a crazy torrential wind and rain storm and we’re stuck.  Gratefully one of our neighbours drove by as we were inspecting the tree and suspended their plans for the day to help us cut the tree down and save the house.  For the next two hours in the pouring rain we cut and hauled it down.  

This picture shows the crack in the tree, and we had already cut away all the parts that were falling toward the house.  You can’t tell in the picture but it was pouring sheets as we were doing this. 

And here’s our older son lumberjacking the larger sections of the tree apart.    He said it was a good workout!  

I was so grateful for our neighbours, and the help of my son.  We were drenched and tired when that one was over.  Hopefully after it dries out this week we’ll break it down into smaller pieces and haul it away.  

What an adventure!  I’m so sad for our tree.  It provided a lot of shade to our house....but I’m also incredibly grateful to still HAVE our house intact!  

Lots of plant damage, but you never know how some plants will recover.  So I’m still hopeful.  

Alright gang...back in the morning with some beautiful NEW Power Poppy!  

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Beauty Captured - Twenty-Eight