20 Minutes of Hard Work

I love the roses in our backyard, but they have been a pain.

First, they have the sharpest, wickedest thorns you've ever seen. Second, the bush was planted far too close to our house. The root ball bumped against the foundation and the branches had a terrible way of rubbing against the window on windy days that made you think a zombie was scraping on the window panes.

Ergh.

I tried reshaping them, pinning them to the side of our house. I blogged about that project here.

That worked for about six months. I snapped this photo yesterday morning:

ARGH.

The Boy had been bugging me for some time (ok, since we bought the house) to get rid of the roses for all of the negative reasons mentioned earlier.

I resisted because I loved the blooms and I thought I could rehab the roses.

I couldn't.

That's why, with many apologies offered, I took pruning shears to the rose bush. I wore super-thick work gloves just in case the rose bit back.

It didn't.

I cut the branches down to 6", then attacked the base with a spade. A bit of digging and tugging and it was out.

Hard to believe that in 20 minutes, our back wall now looks like this:

Sigh. I miss the roses but I won't miss the negatives. I suppose we can start planning what will go in its place.