I was the first person to buy an Eastern Larch tree from the local nursery. It is not a tree most people will plant in a suburban garden but then, I am not most people. Larix laricina is a member of the pine family but unlike most pines, it loses all of its needles in the fall. An evergreen that is not ever green. They are still beautiful trees and the needles are very soft. I don't have any nice photos to show you of the tree because it died. Some fungus killed it off because I realized it was sick. Baking soda and water is very effective but it just went too fast.
A fungus claimed my Eastern White Pine too. And my Hellebore, Lenten Rose, just didn't survive the winter as did the Butterfly Bush, Buddleia Davidii. I knew the Hellebore was a risk in my zone but there was nothing wrong with the pine until the fall when the older needles turn yellow and fall off and then the new growth did too. There I was with a brown tree. The Butterfly Bush is a bit notorious for not surviving many years.
Point is, yes my yard looks good now, but sometimes it doesn't. I've won some and I've lost some. I have Viburnum Leaf Beetles attacking my two Viburnums. They are an introduced bug that is destroying native and introduced Viburnums. If I can't get them under control soon, I will lose both shrubs and one of them is 10 feet high. It will make a big hole in my garden.
Why call this blog Tamarack? Cause it sounds like a French Canadian swear word.