Garden Pic Wednesday: Fall Gardenia Bloom!

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I went out to mow the front yard and found my neighbor whom we're friendly with (James) working hard on chopping a very old Sago Palm out of his landscape. I think it's original landscape from 25 years ago.
Sago Palms were tropical trendy with landscapers in the 80's and 90's and they're cute when they're young; kind of like a shrub of palm fronds. Then they get old and get taller, taking on more of a stubby palm tree form 3 to 6 feet tall and they produce madly around the base.
James had dug a 20 inch hole around it and still hadn't reached the root bottom. He did find about a dozen little baby Sago's and pulled those out.  The stem was about 10 inches thick and 24 inches tall from where it was cut off to the bottom of the hole.
James decided he was going to use his truck to yank it out. So, he tied a strap around the Sago stem, tied it to his truck and pulled---it didn't budge. The strap just popped over the top.
I think he tried a couple times.
I told him humorously that thing might be like Thor's hammer and he might just pull the whole end of his truck off.
Then the neighbor across the street, who also has a truck want to try. So the first time he tried, he just yanked all the outer bark off the Sage stem, but the core stayed put.
So he tried again and it finally snapped off a 12 inch chunk of stem.

James chopped on it some more, even used a chain saw, but there was no getting it completely pulled out.
I suggested he pour white vinegar on the root and top it with a big square piece of landscape plastic, which I gave him from my roll, then cover it with soil.
I hope it won't come back to haunt him.

Today's Garden Pic is a recent Gardenia bloom.
I have one Gardenia that blooms both spring and fall and sometimes sporadically in between. 


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