R. I. P. Daphne

Poor Daphne, the salix Hakuro Nishiki, has been dug up after starting to die, back in July last year. We left her, hoping she'd make a comeback this Spring, but she hasn't. She has been here longer than most of the residents, having been planted nearly 18 years ago. How on earth she managed to survive so long in the ground we've just dug her out of I don't know. It's filled with powdered, broken, and some whole, house bricks and the refuse of a building site, bits of breeze block, clods of dried plaster. The people who planted her, surrounded her with landscape fabric and covered it with ornamental stones, a better solution than digging out all the refuse I suppose. Most of her root system grew sideways, as there wasn't room for them to grow downwards and two of her longest roots measure 2' 11" and 2' 8'' and I could see nothing wrong with them, other than a few were brittle.