Cut back the climbing rose yesterday.
It's a lovely thing. A "Pink Perpetua." Been there years. Nice blooms, bit of scent.
But like many climbing roses, it's been getting a bit leggy. If you leave it a few years (and we have) the flowers are all way up in the air. In this case, way up and growing in the tangle of buddleia over in the cottage garden. Way beyond the trellis that we put in to train it to when it was young.
The trellis has gone, as well. The rose had torn it to pieces as it grew. In the end it was the tree holding what was left of the trellis up.
So we cut it back. It's basically a thick, gnarled stump now. Just a few buds, inches off the ground. It looks pretty much dead. Not a thing like what it was supposed to be. No promise of pretty flowers that.
So it's gonna look a bit forlorn for a while. If the snow blows up against the fence as it sometimes does, you won't know it's even there.
But the roots are broad and deep. All those years of growth went down as well as up. The original soil was good. And we've tipped plenty of good muck in the right places.
I reckon it'll do all right.
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Of course, you might be wrong.
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