When we lived at 562 Denbury in Ottawa I took on most of the landscape duties like cutting the lawn. I also planted some flower gardens, did the annual lilac bush pruning, and the year I graduated high school I decided that our front lawn could use a tree. We purchased a small (5′) silver maple sapling from Sears, and I planted it in the front lawn.
That winter a bad storm bent that sapling almost in half and I had to stretch it back up and add some stakes to try to save it. It did survive, but a small bend remained in its lower trunk.
Amazingly, I visited the house in about 2019 and found that not only was it still there, but it was now the tallest tree in the area, towering over our house! My high school graduation monument — 48 years later!!
