The Last of the Dogwoods

The wind blew our last Dogwood tree down!  I stepped out on the porch yesterday and something was different.  It took a moment or two to figure out what it was.  I could see more of the neighbor's house and the sky. Then I realized, the Dogwood tree at the west end of the porch was missing.  What?  I walked over to the end of the porch and there was the tree lying on the ground.  The strong winds two days before had blown it down.  It was mainly dead, with only one branch that still had blossoms on it every spring.  But it was covered with two kinds of vines, that had loaded the tree down with their weight, and that's all the green stuff you can see in the photograph.  Those are not dogwood leaves you are seeing.

This is crazy that all these vines could completely take over the tree, and for me not to notice, but it is at the edge of the property and the only time I go by it is when I am mowing the grass.  A year or so ago, I took a saw and cut a number of trunks of vines on the tree.  One vine near the bottom was nearly two inches in diameter!  So I knew one day, the tree would have to come down, but not until the last blooming branch was gone.  Well, Mother Nature had other ideas.  So today I played lumberjack and went after the wreckage with a chain saw and now much of the tree and the trunk are in small enough pieces that I can put them in the car and take them to the dump this weekend.  When we bought our house there were two dogwoods on our property - one by the garage and this one.  And then the Gordon's had a Dogwood just on the other side of the hedge on their property.  Now all three are long gone and I will really miss them.