Lori is No Longer with Us!

 

Lori (such an original thought, ahem) was the name I gave this Loropetalum which came to hover around and protect my mail box.

She is (was) actually two loropetalums and I have spent many years shaping/trimming her and occasionally getting inside of her and performing some earnest pruning because I trimmed her so often.

I have received remarks from "Tacky" to "I love her", regarding her. This photo was taken a few days ago and she was always gorgeous, but more so, when she had the reddish-purple foliage and those small pink flowers. 

She had housed the mail box for years, sometimes to the frustration of the mail carrier if I didn't stay on top of making the mail box easily accessible.

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds...unless some gorgeous loropetalum is comforting the mail box. Unless they are scared of waking every day and can't perform a task while working without yapping on their phones or texting.

Nonetheless, Lori's time had come. You can only hold back the DNA of a plant for so long and she wanted to be a bigger girl than we anticipated. Not only was she minimizing the parking space in the driveway, she was making it difficult for friends and family to view the driveway and turn in or back out.

I now know how many of customer's feel about heirloom or cherished plants. I knew Lori had to leave us and the first cut was the deepest, the most difficult. We had enjoyed one another and she served us well, but it was her time. She probably was tired of me "keeping her at bay", anyway.

After tearfully removing Lori, I didn't replace her (not possible), but I reworked the bed borders and installed two Cinnamon Girl Distylliums and one Soft Caress Mahonia...all gorgeous in their own right.

Not the same as Lori, but more manageable and just as gorgeous, as time goes on.

I've considered replacing the mail box or at least it's covering. I wasn't quite able to clean it completely without completely destroying the fabric, but it now has this wonderful patina (for lack of a better term, as it's not metallic).

The original design does now show through so I am going to leave it alone.

Another bonus; my tiny front yard seems somewhat larger.

Now I have to get busy restoring the back yard and its much larger beds. That's what winter is for, for me.