A funeral of sorts ... I guess!

Today we had a funeral of sorts ... I know, it may sound weird but I was ready to have some sort of ceremony to say goodbye to a plant. I know ... weird!! Actually, it started as a couple plants and grew into one monstrous plant that I have trimmed and trimmed and trimmed.

Now, please understand, I do not have a green thumb and the only reason this particular plant has grown is that I really haven't wanted it to grow.

Tim and Sandi lived in Lakeland when they first moved to Florida. When they moved over to St. Pete (about 13 years ago), we inherited the plants. I really can't remember if there were two or three but whatever the case, they became ours. I was sure that they would not last any time at all -- maybe a month even if I watered them correctly. Sometimes I almost drowned them but they seemed to live -- and live -- and live!!

When we moved into the house we have been in for the past 11 years, we brought them and it seemed great to position them around the front of the house. Leave them in their big oversized flower pots and simply let them grow.

We'll they actually outgrew the flower pots and took over the whole front of the house. They climbed the tree and the side of the house. We pulled it down and tried to cut it all out. Actually, we cleaned out the whole area and covered it with plastic. That has been several years ago. Somewhere along the way, those plants went through a resurrection somewhere below the ground, I'm sure, and voila! Here they were again!

At times, they look nice and at other times, it looks like a maze. When a black snake decided to take up residence in the area, we knew it was time for all out war on the plants! So, today, we had someone come in and begin to work. But, before he started, I told Sandi that we needed to tell the plant 'goodbye' -- okay, so I'm a little crazy!! It was getting rather gloomy and the predictions of continued rain (it's rained here for days) added to the sense of impending loss!

However, it is now almost done although the poor guy doing the work was literally rained out!! It was raining at a rate of 2 inches per hour. He didn't want to come into the house 'looking like he did' so he kept working. Until he was drenched! Then he decided to call it a day! I'll post photos tomorrow of the 'new look' after he finishes ... here is how it looked before we said 'goodbye'!!!