Don't do this in YOUR Garden!

On the right you can see a photo of a tree I transplanted to make way for our new deck. Correction: I procrastinated so long about transplanting it and where to put it that my contractor and his assistant ended up transplanting it. That's not as bad a scenario as it sounds on paper because my contractor is also a gardener (or at least he tells me so!). I trust him so I agreed that he'd better go ahead and move it, since time was of the essence at that point. He watered it in well at the time and I gave it one more good watering but then I forgot about it completely for a couple of weeks. As you can see, it didn't appreciate the neglect. There are a few partially green leaves still on the tree but I don't hold out much hope for it. It's a hawthorn, in case you were wondering. I planted it a couple of years ago because I wanted a tree that would provide some shade (but not TOO much shade) for our patio. This particular variety of hawthorn doesn't actually have thorns; except on the little shoots that come up from the base of the tree--they're covered in wicked ones! Another case of genetic manipulation I guess, where the genes just won't be repressed over the long term. (My sister will chime in and let me know what actually is going on there, I hope). I'm sorry that the hawthorn didn't make it because it actually produced lovely little pink flowers in clusters in the spring.

Anyway, I'm thinking of transplanting my little Japanese Maple into that corner when I take out the hawthorn, although I have some concern that it will shade my raspberries over the long term. (Come to think of it, that was the reason I hesitated to transplant my hawthorn to that spot.) In the short term I'm not too worried because it's only about 2 feet tall, a gift from my gardening sister. It will look lovely there I think, when it grows up a bit....as long as I remember to water it...