The roses in the backyard are blooming!
Here’s a close-up of the yellow one:
And the red one:
We also have large cream ones and tiny pink ones.
I’m of two minds on the whole thing. The first is sort of a “yay, blooming!” happy response – they really are pretty, and since they’re in a corner of the yard that we can’t see at all from the house I have no compunction about clipping blooms to bring indoors.
The section reaction is mild irritation – I can tell that the bushes are crying out for care from the way they’re growing (very droopy, not like the proud straight bushes of the neighbour up the street), and I know that roses can be time intensive, and off all the things I’m willing to spend time tending roses don’t really make the list. But if they’re blooming this well without any prodding/help, maybe I should try to nurture them? If they weren’t blooming so well, I’d just tear them out and plant dahlias and call it a day, but now I’m feeling torn. Does anyone want to convince me that the work is minimal?
I’m very big on the easy way out, but I think anything that produces such lovely blossoms deserves to live! They couldn’t require all that much care if they’ve done so well with none, could they?? Maybe just give them some rose fertilizer and you can let them be with a clear conscience???
The approach I’ve taken with our roses thus far is tend to them with the amount of care I’m willing/able to (which thus far has meant pruning the ones in the front yard once and ignoring those in the back yard) and we’ll see what happens. If they get to be sickly or overly-needy I’ll get rid of them at that time.
All the ones in the front yard are blooming beautifully and seem to be doing well. One in the back yard is doing well, and the others are smothered under other overgrowth I haven’t gotten to yet, so we’ll see what happens when I get around to them.