Tree overboard

The Hakea suaveolens in the brights bed has been leaning at a precarious angle for a week, and I ordered strapping and ratchets, and consulted with an arborist in order to straighten it up.

Sadly over the weekend, before we could get it upright, the heavy rains dragged it down flat, exposing roots. Today we surveilled the damage and concluded the tree was unlikely to make it, even if we could attach the strapping to a point high enough to pull the several hundred pound tree upright.

Pretty sad, as that was the last remaining large tree in the brights bed. However, if the roots were as shallow as they looked and the top as heavy as it is, there's a good chance this is not an ideal tree for that spot.

We have two other examples of the same species in the garden, in the left bed. One of them started leaning a few years ago, and we staked it then. It's leaning again, though I expect it will be alright. The other is upright, but has a heavy branch on the downslope side we will remove to prevent the risk of it tipping.

On the plus side, this means we can select another small tree for the brights bed. Ideally something evergreen and extremely drought tolerant. Another Cussonia?