Terre Pruitt's Blog

I am so happy with our roses.  One year I went out and hacked them pretty good.  They were just growing too wild.  I went out and chopped them up.  There are some bushes that produce these flowers . . . I think of them as roses.  I am not sure what they are.  The bushes are not the type that have one flower on a stem, they are the type that have multi flowers on a stem.  They bloom then die quickly and we end up with dead brown petals all over the yard.  So when I chopped the bushes I chopped those ones up a lot.  Since then we have not had the yard full of dead browness all over.  I like that better.  The bushes are a nice green and are just fine not producing flowers.  I did such a good job that I have not really been out there since to really do a huge hack job.  Which means I have also not done anything to our other rose bushes.  A couple of weeks ago I was noticing they were out of control.  They have really tall stems towering over the bush.  (I think the first picture to the left shows how tall a couple of the stems are.)   I thought, “I need to go cut those so the bush is more in control.”  But I noticed that at the top of each stem was a bud.  So I decided that after the flowers bloom and die I will start cutting the bush back.  What I have done is gone out and cut some prime flowers to bring in.  Then as the other ones bloom and die, I trim them off.

But as you can see the bush is just doing a beautiful job of producing flowers.  Even though it is a mess of a bush, not trimmed to any type of pleasing shape or taken care of in the least it is still producing very beautiful flowers.  And like most “homegrown” roses, they smell fantastic.  I have been cutting flowers and about-to-open buds and bringging them in.  At the time of this writing, I have five small vases with flowers . . . . well, six if you count the one single flower that broke off the stem that I stuck in a tiny vase . . . set about the house.  Still the rose bush is full.  I need to go out and cut some more off.

Such a hardy rose bush.  This is the one that used to be JUST orange and now the flowers are orange and pink.

Then there is the yellow and pink roses.  Those ones used to be JUST pink or did they used to be just yellow?  Either way, they are now dual colored.

The ones that look red my husband calls Crimson Stinkers.  I really need to tend to that bush.  It is right in front of the kitchen window with the idea that we can look out and see them, but the curtain is always closed so I forget they are there.  The poor bush is more like a few vines.  I am going to give her extra love.  Her flowers are beautiful when they have a chance to grow and don’t end up at the end of a long viney stem on the ground.

I love flowers.  I love roses.  I love that they are so hardy they don’t even really need attention.  I am not the gardener in the family.  I do not have a green thumb at all.  I am not a fan of dirt or the outdoors.  Dirt just bugs me and the outside makes me sneeze.  In fact the other day when I was outside trimming the roses I stayed out as long as I could.  When I started sneezing and my nose started running I had to come in.  It didn’t take that long.  But I did get some trimming done.

I just love the roses and the beauty they have.  I just wanted to share.

I have a friend who was tweeting about all of the fruits and vegetables she planted.  She said something about flowers.  I tweeted that my roses are going wild and she said she was afraid to try growing roses.  I laughed.  I didn’t understand how she could grow FOOD and other flowers, but think she couldn’t grow roses.  I’ll share this post with her so she can see our roses that did this all on their own with no help from me.  @BeckySain, if I can grow (cough, cough, cough, I didn’t DO anything) roses, YOU can grow roses!

Below are the ones that used to be either pink and now are yellow and pink or yellow and are now both. Pink. I think they used to be pink.

Anyone out there have rose growing tips for my friend?

Crimson Stinker

Ha, ha, ha . . . I should say, anyone out there have rose growing tips for ME?  Whatcha got?