Dirty Tales from the Garden - Roses

Some plants are more intimidating than others to me - or at least they used to be.

Bulbs, veggies, and most flowers - easy peasy...

But roses?!??!? Roses were always intimidating (along with any of those quirky bulbs that require you to dig them up in the fall and replant them in the spring - too fussy for me)

Mom had roses - I remember spindly little shrubs at the bottom of the driveway that had gorgeous flowers from time to time -but don't remember much else.

And books -books make roses sound so high maintenance. And I am so NOT high maintenance.

So whatever possessed me to buy a rose bush one year? I don't know - but I did. A climbing rose - I figured it would be less fussy about pruning that way. Besides, it was on sale and I figured if it lived it lived, and if it died it died.

Well folks -it lived. It lived and it thrived and it grew. It grew and pulled the trellis half out of the ground so the trellis is crooked. It grew until it's thorny branches were threatening to grab anyone getting out of their car in the driveway, or coming down the stairs off the deck. It grew until one branch nearly reached the kitchen window. It rules the corner of the house.

And we are not talking a gentle prickly rose bush here. We are talking big honkin' hat grabbing glove puncturing thorns! Think Little Shop of Horrors -Rosebud Version here people. Don't let that pretty raindrop spattered blossom fool you - this plant is dangerous!!!

It has been pruned - severely - multiple times. A few cuttings got stuck in the ground just to see what would happen, and one rooted. So it has "spawned" another. And foolish me - I am nurturing that little offspring and plan to plant it at the other corner of the house.

And all that intimidating rosebush jibberish in the books? I don't fertilize this monster, it is not mulched, and is lucky if it gets weeded (depends on what my bandage budget is for that week). During the winter it is left to it's own devices -no burlap here. The snow blower throws snow right from the driveway directly at that corner. My pruning shears are rusty, my pruning technique aggressive (has to be), and other than that I pretty much ignore, neglect and otherwise avoid this corner unless I have to.

And the picture above is what I am rewarded with. Beautiful blooms - hundreds of them - buds on nearly every stem. And we are now receiving round two of blossoms.

Roses intimidating? Pish Posh - as long as have my chain maille and machete with me!