Mimosas in summer

While I'm not easily excited over mimosas the drink, I am excited about the mimosa trees that I was able to plant!  My parents have a couple larger mimosas in their yard back in Maryland and convinced me to bring back a few to plant in my yard.  Chloe and I drove back from our vacation a little over a month ago with a box of three trees in the front seat.  I planted all three once I got home, but I had a heck of a time doing it.  There was no rain for the entire week that we were down in Maryland, which meant that the dirt was extremely dry and hard to dig up.  I did the best I could, tossed some mulch around the three itty bitty trees, watered them, and hoped for the best.

Planting anything in Ohio in the middle of summer is usually a bad idea.  I seemed to have gotten lucky though, because all three of my little trees are growing!  They were all just a couple inches tall when I planted them (I kept asking my step-dad over and over "Are you sure those are trees?  Those look like weeds").  I haven't been able to get pictures of them yet, but let's just say that one tree is doing much better than the others.  All of them are still green and showing signs of life, but the tree planted closer to the dip in the back of the yard is doing the best and is almost 12 inches tall now.  If only my little aloe plant was doing as well......

This is what my little trees will look like in another few years once they've grown some more and the flowers bloom (they grow an average of 2 to 4 feet per year):

I hope they all make it.  These would be so pretty in my oh-so-boring backyard.

The next yard work item to tackle is knocking down the mulberry tree again.  Last year when I moved in, there was one branch that was about a foot away from touching my neighbors' house.  By mid-October, it was about an inch away.  Thankfully, my step-dad came for a visit and brought the chainsaw, so we spent a few hours cutting down branches until just a two-foot tall stump was left.  Simple, right?  Yes....until I noticed that there were leaves sticking through the little fence on that side of the house a few weeks ago.....I knew mulberry trees grew fast but OH MY GOSH this thing is frightening!  I think I may need to hire someone to come dig up the stump (once I get someone to take the chainsaw to it again) because it is uncomfortably close to the house in my opinion (and my realtor's opinion too).  There are a ton of branches, sprouting from the ground AND the stump, and it gets in the way when mowing the lawn.  I do sometimes wish that there was a class on lawn and plant care when buying a home!