Loropetalum chinense rubrum 'Zhuzhou Fuchsia'.....it's been a good year for Loropetalums at the USNA

Flowers dribbled out last winter, all the cultivars flowered heavily this spring, and now many are in full bloom again.

It was a gloomy drizzly day and we had another large tree removed from the Asian Collections. An Oak just off the corner of the bathrooms was taken down today. The contractor used a crane and apparently just in time. The foreman told me that when they do "crane jobs" they always, almost always, start by removing the branches on the side of the tree closed to the crane. After discussing it they decided the root system was so compromised on that side that they worried unbalancing the tree in that direction would cause it to fall. So they removed the far side branches first, lifting them over the tree. I guess it's a good thing they know what they're doing.

Everything worked out all right in the end except that we're down another tree. I'm glad I'm writing this blog instead of reading it because I might get the impression that the mature trees were just about gone from the collection. That would be upsetting. They aren't of course, and anyway, we're replanting much faster than they fall down/get removed.