I removed the tall skinny tree and looked at the root of the interesting tree.

The tree is about 5 feet tall and 4 feet across

The roots are definitely wider spreading from the green hose at the left of the picture to the dug area on the right

How does a small plant get such big roots?

By having a root stock like this!

The orange strap was an attempt to pull it loose a bit with my truck. 4×4 and low range but the tree didn’t even wobble. The wife decided it should live for putting up such valiant resistance

Here is the Artichoke thing in bloom

You have to admire their tenacity!

I’m currently in the middle of tidying up a messy patch of small plants and larger shrubs in our front garden and am having to dig massive holes to get the larger shrubs up!

Yay!

* applauds WCA *

Handy. You could lock your bikes to it 🙂

Removing the tree with your truck pulls the wall down 🙁

Don’t do this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rak5xpqIE68

That artichoke thing looks like a variant of Giant Thistle in my very limited experience.
I like it and the conifer.