Trees, Successes and Failures

I was never much of a tree planter; flowers and vegetables, yes, but trees....
Take for instance this tree ~ 

Hahaha Yes, it's dead.  But this was the second time I tried to plant this particular kind of tree.  You can see the grass is green so watering happened.



















This is what it should end up looking like:
 Phanera purpurea

I was excited to start small and shape the tree as it grew, but I didn't have much of a chance.

I knew right away when I heard him "clip" and then got it home to find the largest root sections were clipped. 

I had help getting these two trees planted also~

So, I took them back to the nursery and they didn't have a problem replacing both dead trees and I replanted only one of them in the back corner of my yard and gave the other one to my friend.  Both of the second trees died, even when I had planted it as soon as I got it home.  How disappointing.  Hers died also, for no rhyme or reason.

I really wanted a purple flowering tree in the yard because I now have yellow, white and purple flowers; yellow, white and purple flowering bushes; but only yellow and white flowering trees.  

Maybe this is what I'll try to get next since it's kind of like a lilac (without the smell) but a beautiful purple flowering tree/large bush.  Don't know the name of it yet... that will come.

A new possibility for my purple flowering tree