THE POWER OF THE PLANT

The most talked about trees on my property by family, friends and general passerbys, without a doubt are my two curbside Royal Empress trees. Hard to believe I planted two bare roots two years ago. This being the start of it's third season is where the fun truly begins. I've had multiple unknown passerby stop while walking, and even pull over in their car to have a closer look. In the first year people thought I'd lost my marbles and planted two gigantic sunflowers on my curb. They were convinced! I initially trained the saplings and allowed only one shoot to grow while plucking away any other shoots that fought to grow (seemingly daily new shoots budded) but I left the gigantic leaves all the way up the soon to be stalk that would become the tree's trunk.  In the second growing season I had an established "pole." No better way to describe what the trees looked like. At this point the nicknames began. "Jurassic Tree" and "Jack and the B...