Here's a photo of the jungle surrounding our little house. It's not obvious from the front, but the back roof is mostly covered by a blue tarp--it doesn't make much sense to spend a lot of money on a roof, when the house is slated to disappear.

In addition to removing the house, we will need to move the shrubberies--at least, the ones that are most likely to survive. There are a number of rhododendrons that need to be moved, plus some interesting things--like the Dracunulus Vulgaris shown on the left. It looks like a black calla lilly, but the flowers can be enormous--some of our plants have flowers that are at least 2 feet high. But they have another, less genteel trait: they use carrion-eating insects for pollenators, so their "perfume" smells like rotting meat!

We didn't buy these. They just appeared. My wife thought the plants looked interesting so we let them grow. The plants didn't start flowering right away so we had no idea what we were in for. Fortunately, the flower doesn't last very long -- in warm weather, just a couple of days. But during that time, it can get pretty odiferous around here. We even had the local police looking through the jungle looking for dead bodies (a true story).

The plant's form and coloration is pretty attractive, with broad tropical looking leaves and brown chevron markings on the leaves and stalk, so we have decided to put up with the temporary smell of plant sex.