We're still trying to accustom ourselves to the sight of wide open sky when we look toward the most prominent of our garden beds, where our large old pine had been before we had it removed several weeks ago. Our trees this year have become the focus of our garden activities.

We've found Japanese beetles have fallen in love with our Corkscrew Hazel and are busy trying to control their presence, not terribly appreciative of their habit of leaving skeletal foliage in their wake.

We've been trimming the ornamental miniature crab trees; Jade and Sargenti, alike. And because our two magnolia trees have really gained bulk this past several years they too require judicial trimming. What is somewhat out-of-the-ordinary is that both trees have simultaneously had a second bloom. We're accustomed to the backyard magnolia blooming again, although not as fulsomely as this year, but not the older, larger one in the front; that's a delightful surprise.

Yesterday afternoon my husband took the telescopic lopper to the top branches of the now-towering (well, 20-feet-height) weeping cypress to remove a few dry-hanging mini-branches.

Our neighbour having had their pine tree removed as well has really opened up a vista of uninterrupted sky, permitting in both instances (our missing pine and theirs as well), for the sun to shine where previously it could not. I'm thinking of planting some of the chameleon plant pieces behind the garden bed that our neighbour's pine had towered over, to put them behind the Japanese Yew and Sunset Maple on the opposite side of our driveway.

Corkscrew Hazel

There is some Japanese spurge growing there, and a few languishing hostas, but the variegated foliage of the chameleon plant, now that the pine's shadow is absent, may be just the thing to give that area a little more character.

Chameleon plant alongside begonia

The chameleon plant is a stealthily invasive plant, so one is best cautioned to put it where you can be confident it won't harm your garden, since it's so officiously entitled that it tends to take over everything, pushing its way aggressively into territory belonging by right of residence, to other, valued plants. I've found, though, it can be isolated and add form and colour to garden pots, complementing other flowering plants growing in them, without harm.

One of our pink-flowering hydrangeas that we planted late last summer, absolutely loving the bright pink blooms, has returned with splendidly bright lime-green foliage, but no sign of flowerheads at this late season even though all the other hydrangeas have been flowering for quite awhile; hope it doesn't turn out to be a dud.