The White Rose of Sharon Came Back to Life!

 Hola!

This week has come on with below-normal temperatures and rain in the forecast.  Yesterday was pretty much off and on rain and the temperatures fell from comfortable mid-70s to around 80 with much lower humidity last week to the warmest day yesterday (it got up to about 63)!  Temperatures will decline all week and drop into the 50s at night; and a possible frost warning for SE Wisconsin by Saturday.  That's unusual for this time of year, but hey - the new normal is never knowing what will be thrown at you next!

I did have a good streak of weather to get quite a bit of yard clean-up done and what I consider a miracle occurred:  the White Rose of Sharon survived!  Here's a pictoral summary:  

Above, a picture of what was left of my white flowering Rose of Sharon after last year's hard winter and equally rotten spring, taken this July.  You can see the flower bed is also filled with weed tree saplings and I will never win the battle again the ever-invading (from next store, right underneath the fence) ground ivy!  Lots of dead wood where the shrub used to be, but there are also new shoots that have sprung up since the spring - just not sure if those are the same Rose of Sharon or seedlings from one or both of my other two Roses of Sharon that share the same flower bed.

The photo above was taken September 22nd.  After pruning down much of the dead wood to the ground and saving any branches that showed small signs of life (July 21st - August 21st, when I tackled cleaning out this flower bed), cleaning out the weed trees around it and pulling as much of the ground ivy as possible (and cleaning out dead stems and leaves from the day lilies), the white Rose of Sharon started shooting out leaves from the branches I didn't cut to the ground (but trimmed off any fully dead wood) and she started setting some flower buds.  I didn't think she'd open though before the cold weather set it. I was still girding myself to dig her out before the deep freeze hits.  But after I deep watered the lawn and flower beds about every 10 days 3 times, and a week's worth of heavy rain earlier in September, she really took off growing.  The branches that had survived from last year and the shoots from the ground that shot up several feet seemingly overnight.  Lo and behold, the blossoms burst open about ten days before I took this photo!  At first, only a single flower opened, but I was thrilled to see even that one.  A few days later, a second opened, and then a third, and then several opened simultaneously.

The photo above was taken today, 9/29/20.  Lots of flowers, and there are still many buds that haven't opened.  It's just amazing how she sprang back to life .  You can see how tall the new shoots have gotten, particularly on the left side.  But as I said earlier, I'm not sure that those are a new white Rose of Sharon!  The leaves are larger for one thing, and it doesn't look like the new shoots came out of the base of the original shrub.  So, I'll have to wait and see what happens next spring and summer.  When seed pods form, I'll go out with an envelope and collect some from her, just in case.