cut it about 4 foot.. and hope it rebuds ... then spend 5 years removing excess leaders.. and pruning the tree into tree form ... and all that is nbd .... all that said... lets hope the sun variable has changed enough that it grows straighter up ... i suspect that in priming for the house sale.. someone went in there. .and removed a jungle.. and perhaps that is why it grew in this form ... if you arent up for the challenge.. cut it flush to the ground and apply a stump killer.. and be done with it.. and buy and plant another in better light conditions in the next proper season ... see primer link below.. section one ... it is very hard to plant and grow babes under the canopy of very old large trees ... as all trees are full sun plants ... but also.. the water competition .... ken https://sites.google.com/site/tnarboretum/Home/planting-a-tree-or-shrub

Unless the spot with the tree is especially prone to waterlogging, I doubt the wet summer and fall had an affect on the tree color. I was in NJ a few weeks ago and saw plenty of beautiful Red Maples. Now, the caveat is, Red Maple is one of those trees with fascinating genetic variation. Some trees regularly turn glorious red, while others are always yellow. Its just wierd like that ;-) If it was red last year, then something else (besides the weather) is likely affecting it. If it was yellow last year, it was probably mislabelled. I suppose it could just not like the surrounding soil too...

Only real pic I got was of this tree that my wife and I love in Leu Gardens. I was mostly interested in tropical fruit and some butterfly/hummingbird flowers. I came home with a Starfruit tree for $15 and a Sweet Almond bush for $10. My wife got a small gardenia for $8 and a blue flowering bush I've forgotten the name of. I was absolutely amazed that Hopkins Nursery was selling 3 gallon peach trees for $10 and loquats for $5, but unfortunately I have those already or I would have snagged some in a heartbeat. I was very tempted by some honeysuckle that smelled amazing, but I'm worried about how invasive it is, so need to do more research first.

I grew some zowie flame Zinnias this year, and also a bunch of other Zinnia 'cultivars'. Now there are so many different Zinnias I don't know which are the flames. I didn't have any Zinnias last year and I missed all the butterflies they drew, so had to have lots this year. They are a lady favorite. I have a few new native pasture thistle plants for the ladies too.All sorts of stuff. Zinnias, Cosmos, Gomphrenas, Verbenas, prairie dropped, ect. I have a bunch if new native milkweeds. Different species native to Illinois. There are about 20 Asclepias species native to Illinois. I lost a lot of seedlings because of the crazy weather, and a few were just recently eaten down to sticks, but I'm hoping most will recover come spring. The ladies are back! I planted 2 rue plants last year for the black swallowtails. Still no black swallowtail cats, but I was amazed to find giant cats on my rue, all the way up here in Illinois. I'm trying to get wafer and prickly ash trees going for the giants and tigers. This giant cat was so long, that at 1st, I thought it was 2 cats back to back. There are lots of Monarch cats here again like last year. I made sure to have enough food this time. This is a crysalis on Amorpha fruticosa, false indigo. I thought how amazing the way its shape and color blend in with the plant. I was lucky to catch this. These swan milkweeds can feed a lot of cats. The orange oleander aphids were starting to get bad when the lady beetles moved in and cleaned them all up. The aphids always attack the A. incarnata the worst.This is a new vine. Cynanchum laeve, honeyvine. It will be able to feed an army of Monarch cats!A beautiful sulphur on Liatris aspera. A Monarch on Coreopsis tripteris. I grew 2 kinds of Tweedia this year. The blue and the pink. I had heard that Monarchs won't lay eggs on the blue Tweedia,(Oxypetalum), but they did lay eggs on the pink flowered species and the cats ate it, and were healthy. The pink one is now called Oxypetalum solanoides. I grow these tropical milkweeds in pots.