Hello early spring! My bargain tree returns

The $11 prairifire crabapple tree we planted last fall is actually blooming and alive. Hot pink! Not that I had serious doubts it wouldn't come back. But when you plant what is essentially a bare stick in the ground, you have to wonder. Grow, tiny tree, grow!

The $11 tree experiment

After taking out a couple of dying trees, our backyard was starting to feel empty. I wanted to replace the smaller red bud with another flowering tree and I wanted to get it in the ground before winter. No more tree procrastination!

So off we went to Lowes to grab something, and surprise! They were all on clearance -- 50% off! There wasn't much left to choose from, but I guess it was late October. It's been so warm around here lately, I didn't feel like it was too late to plant.

Anyway, we picked up this Prairifire Crabapple for only $11.49! Crazy.

It's kind of dinky and sickly looking now (then again, isn't every autumn tree?), so that's why I'm considering this an experiment of sorts.

Hopefully, this is what it will look like in the spring when it blooms. Such a pretty red!

My original plan was to set it back in the yard around where the other one was planted, but that area is very shady most of the day and the dwindling selection at Lowes was all full-sun trees.

So tree in hand, we moved up our planting spot closer to the driveway. It will get a lot more sun here, and when the tree gets bigger, it should provide some privacy from the street and the neighbors.

This picture makes me laugh. My husband isn't very handy. (Sorry for outing you, Dan.) I've got him beat hands down in that department. Somehow he made it to age 35 without ever planting a tree, so I coached him along while he was digging the hole.

The leaves still hanging on are a nice deep red color. I'm excited to see what spring brings!

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In other tree related news...

The old stumps that were cluttering up the planting beds are gone! (We uncovered these stumps after removing a bunch of overgrown vines last year, and like many things, weren't aware of them when we bought the house.)

My dad came over while we were out of town a few weekends ago and completely took them out. There is no sweeter gift than surprise yardwork, my friends. Spread the news.

This photo is not that exciting because showing you what's not there is difficult, but the stump was right there in that empty space in the middle of the photo. A bit of a hole in the landscaping, but we'll deal with that next spring.

Crooked tree, crooked tree

My backyard is looking a little naked.

It started when we had this dying and crooked maple tree removed. It wasn't doing well, and during every thunderstorm, I had that nagging thought in the back of my head that it just might come down. On the neighbor's house.

Dying trees don't really improve with time, so we bucked up and forked over the big bucks to have it removed by professionals.

Then it was on to tree #2. A much smaller red bud that was even more crooked.

This tree had been on the downhill slide for a while, and the trunk was completely rotted out. I wasn't worried about it coming down onto anything, but I wanted to remove it now so that we could plant a replacement before winter.

It was in such bad shape, I was convinced we just might be able to push it over with our bare hands. Elise and I tried, and while the tree gave quite a bit and a couple of large chunks broke off, it wasn't going anywhere. So my dad came over to cut it up with a chainsaw.

Now it's gone and the yard feels empty. I'm open to any and all suggestions for a small flowering tree to replace the red bud. Part sun/part shade. Anybody have any recommendations?