This is the Redvein Enkianthus AFTER I chopped it down and removed it from the north lawn bed.  It never looked the way it was photographed on websites and catalogs. It grew in a tight column – very slowly. In the meantime, the plants around it grow more quickly. The Blue Princess holly has come along very nicely and this year is full of berries. The creeping juniper on its other side also grew to almost engulf it.  For me this shrub failed because it didn’t behave as advertised. It was not as graceful as I expected, the foliage was not as notable, and the flowers are very tiny. I failed because I did not allow it sufficient room to grow.

This view of the lawn bed is looking east. The concrete circle covers an ancient 10 foot dug well that we discovered when we were first planting the lawn bed about 16 years ago. We keep saying we will take advantage of the well, but it goes dry every summer and we haven’t come up with an artistic way of camouflaging or otherwise dealing with the well cover. Any suggestions?  The 5 foot enkianthus (Enkianthus campanulatus) was essentially right behind the cover. You can see there wasn’t really a  lot of room now that the shrub is gone. Calculating how much and  how fast a plant will grow is always a challenge, and I flubbed this one.

I never seem to remember to take Before photos, but this is a good record for me while I think about other plantings in the spring. No shrubs in this spot.